Pray George is gay - minister
BRITAIN: Christians should pray for Prince George to be gay to force the Church of England to support same-sex marriage, a senior Anglican minister has said.
The comments from a prominent clergyman in the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church of England’s sister institution, have prompted a former chaplain to the Queen to say the call was ‘‘unkind’’ and ‘‘profoundly un-Christian’’.
The Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, the provost who runs St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, called on Christians to pray for Prince George, 4, ‘‘to be blessed one day with the love of a fine young gentleman’’.
He said that if the future monarch and supreme head of the Church of England were gay and wanted a same-sex marriage it would be ‘‘the fastest way’’ to force the English church to allow gay people to wed, as they have been able to in Scottish Episcopal churches since June.
The call was condemned by the Right Rev Gavin Ashenden, a conservative clergyman who served as a chaplain to the Queen from 2008 to 2017, who likened it to ‘‘a curse from a fairytale’’.
He said that wishing for Prince George to have a gay marriage would undermine the prince’s duty ‘‘to have descendants’’.
‘‘If you’re going to pray for Prince George, pray for him to be happy . . . and pray for him to discharge his duty as prince, to be married and have children,’’ he said.
‘‘It is not a kind prayer. It is not a blessing. It’s more like a curse from a fairytale. I would say it’s profoundly un-Christian.’’
Holdsworth, who was born in Leeds and educated in Glasgow, is equivalent to a dean in England. The clergyman, who is gay, played a key role in campaigning for the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Scottish Episcopal churches and wants the Church of England, which holds that marriage should be between only a man and a woman, to follow suit.
Holdsworth made his remarks on Twitter while reposting a blog he wrote this year. It advised Church of England members to lobby the General Synod of the Church of England and parliament to back pro-LGBT measures, arguing that ‘‘equal marriage is the goal’’.
It added: ‘‘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.
‘‘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,’’ Holdsworth wrote.
Ashenden resigned from the Queen’s service and quit the Church of England this year in protest at the liberal stance on sexuality. He has since become a bishop of the conservative Christian Episcopal Church in North America, charged with defending orthodox biblical teaching in Europe.
Kensington Palace declined to comment. –