Elton John: Jesus Would Approve of Same-Sex Marriage
As Elton John begins to plan his wedding to longtime partner David Furnish, he’s confident that Jesus himself would approve of sex-same marriage – including unions between two gay priests.
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“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,” John said in a new interview with Sky News. “He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together and that’s what the church should be about.”
The question came up as John was discussing “signs of hope” that he saw in the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and Pope Francis. But there’s still room for improvement, John said, including the Church of England’s refusal to allow gay clergy to marry and the requirement that Catholic priests be celibate. “These are old and stupid things,” he said.
John also said that while he is “living a life of luxury” in the U.K. with his “human rights intact,” he’s committed to ensuring people all over the world have access to the same rights. “Globally, we seem to have gone backwards over the last 18 months, in certain areas,” he said.
In that regard, John says that he plans to plans to try to make some headway with Russian President Vladimir Putin on his next visit to Putin’s territory, where he has previously said “vicious homophobia has been legitimized.” “I’m going to Russia in November, and I will try and meet Putin and I will try to talk to him. I don’t know what good it will do. But unless you build a bridge – it’s no good putting up a wall and saying I’m not talking to these people. The only thing that gets solved is by talking to people.”
As for his wedding plans, John, who entered a civil union with Furnish in 2005, said that the nuptials probably wouldn’t happen until next year. “When we do do, it will be very quiet and off the cuff,” he said. “We had our big shebang when we had our civil union.”