Former President Jimmy Carter wants you to know that he thinks Jesus Christ would be OK with gay marriage.
The Georgia native, who still teaches Sunday school classes monthly in South Georgia, made the revelation Tuesday during an interview with The Huffington Post to promote his latest book, “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety.”
Carter said he couldn’t cite “any verse in Scripture,” but he thought Jesus would support gay marriage, which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized in a 5-4 decision it handed down last month.
“I believe Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that’s just my own personal belief,” he said. “I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.”
Carter has evolved some on the issue.
He also said in October that legalizing same-sex marriage should be left up to the states, which sent a stir through the gay rights community.
Carter’s grandson, former state Sen. Jason Carter, also came out in support of marriage equality during his unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2014, saying in a statement then that he also didn’t want government to dictate to churches what they should do.
In a debate in October, though, he added that he didn’t think “we should waste taxpayer dollars” on legal action that could be doomed.
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