Gay commentator Andrew Sullivan on Sunday explained why same-sex marriage did not violate the religious liberty of Catholics.

Sullivan, a practicing Roman Catholic, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that Christianity wasn’t fundamentally at odds with rights for LGBT individuals.

“I would say the religious arguments are more based in fear than in the actual teachings, that they’re based upon stray texts that actually don’t mean what you think they mean, and that Jesus himself only said one thing about marriage, which is that you can’t divorce,” he said. “And we live in a country were countless people are divorced and that doesn’t seem to threaten the religious liberty of Catholics, and it’s as fundamental an issue.”

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“So if Catholics can live with religious liberty with divorced people, they should be perfectly able to live with gay people, I mean, as married, as a civil marriage,” Sullivan added.

Despite the official position of the Catholic Church, which vehemently opposes same-sex marriage, Sullivan said most Catholics were accepting and compassionate towards LGBT individuals.

“And my experience was, as a Catholic in the pews, was callousness in the rhetoric from the Vatican, but incredible compassion and support from the people right and left of me in those pews celebrating the same God, wanting the same communion.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by CNN, below: