Elton John thinks Jesus would support gay marriage.

“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 garish performer, 67, told Sky News. “He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together and that is what the church should be about.”

“The church hierarchy, the traditionalist, might be up in arms about it but times have changed,” said John, in addition to calling the current doctrine banning gay clergy from marrying and keeping priests celibate as “old and stupid things.”

Despite his distaste for the Catholic church’s rigid rules, he favored the archbishop of Cantebury, Justin Welby, and Pope Francis.

“He’s excited me so much by his humanity,” the musician about the pope. “He’s taken everything down to the humanity 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 plans to marry his civil partner, David Furnish, in a “very quiet and very off the cuff” ceremony in 2015.