Singer George Michael has said gay marriage shouldn't be forced on churches.

The 49-year-old Michael made his comments during an appearance on Scottish radio station Clyde 1 last week.

Speaking on the George & Suzie in the Morning show, Michael was asked his thoughts on Scotland's gay marriage debate.

“Civil registration partnerships are legally correct,” he said. “They give people the same rights as people in marriage. But I don't believe in forcing it and I think if will fail if you force churches who don't believe in it to have gay marriage ceremonies.”

“But there are plenty of Scottish churches apparently that are saying they will go ahead and do them. And I think on that basis then yeah, absolutely, I think it's a perfectly healthy move.”

“I don't think it's a healthy move to force homophobia out of the church, it just will never happen. And if you try, then you just prolong the argument.”

“People probably think there's something terribly different going on. There's not. It's the difference between the legal rights of marriage and the word marriage. For one, I don't really understand when you want to join a religion that doesn't want them. But it should be their choice.” (The audio is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)