Elton John claim Jesus Would Have Supported Gay Marriage

 Elton John said Jesus Christ was so full of compassion that He would have been a supporter of gay marriage. The singer also thought that the rules preventing gay clergy from marrying and requiring Catholic priests to be celibate were "old and stupid."

"The church hierarchy, the traditionalists, might be up in arms about it but times have changed," John told Sky News' Murnaghan programme. "If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen."

The Rocket Man continued, "He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together and that is what the church should be about." For that, he praised Pope Francis who supported civil unions for same-sex couples and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who said that same-sex marriage was "great."

"He's excited me so much by his humanity," the singer said of the Pope. "He's taken everything down to the humility of faith. He's stripped it down to the bare bones and said it's all basically about love and inclusiveness. That has to be encouraged by the Church of England as well."

John has been in civil partnership with David Furnish since December 2005 when Civil Partnership Act came into force in the U.K. They plan to marry next year in a "very quiet and very off the cuff" ceremony.