Very Rev Kevin Holdsworth says C of E will be forced to support same-sex marriage if the ‘Lord blesses George with the love of a fine young gentleman’

Christians should pray for Prince George to be gay to force support for same-sex marriage in the Church of England, a senior Scottish Episcopal church minister and LGBTQ campaigner has said.

The Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, made the comments in a blog he reposted about LGBTQ inclusion in the Church of England following the announcement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement.

In the post, he writes that Christians should pray “for the Lord to bless Prince George with a love, when he grows up, of a fine young gentleman”.

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A former chaplain to the Queen, the Rev Gavin Ashenden, has described the comments as “unkind” and “profoundly un-Christian”, and said the prayer was the “theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairytales”.

Speaking to Christian Today, Ashenden said: “To pray for Prince George to grow up in that way, particularly when part of the expectation he will inherit is to produce a biological heir with a woman he loves, is to pray in a way that would disable and undermine his constitutional and personal role.

“It is an unkind and destabilising prayer. It is the theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairytales. It is un-Christian as well as being anti-constitutional. It is a very long way from being a blessing for Prince George.”

The full post by Holdsworth about Prince George is part of a list of nine suggestions to force LGBT inclusion in the Church of England.

“If people don’t want to engage in campaigning in this way, they do in England have another unique option, which is to pray in the privacy of their hearts (or in public if they dare) for the Lord to bless Prince George with a love, when he grows up, of a fine young gentleman,” it reads.

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“A royal wedding might sort things out remarkably easily, though we might have to wait 25 years for that to happen. Who knows whether that might be sooner than things might work out by other means?”

• The headline on this article was amended on 1 December 2017 because an earlier version referred to the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth as a C of E minister. He is a minister with the Scottish Episcopal church. This has been corrected.