His remarks were widely reported in the British media. If George is gay, the Church of England would be more “inclusive”.
The cleric and gay rights campaigner, Rev. Kelvin Holdsworth, wants the little boy who is third in line to the throne to wed a man, after the news of Prince Harry’s engagement to a mixed-race divorcee.
George is the elder child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Holdsworth, the provost of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, belongs to the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion that voted in June to let its priests conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies.
Same-sex marriage are generally permitted by law in Britain. Holdsworth suggestion could mean the Church of England allowing same-sex couples to marry in its churches at the discretion of parish priests.
Holdsworth urged followers in a blog post this week 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,” Holdsworth wrote. He then hinted at pedophilia: “Who knows whether that might be sooner than things might work out by other means.”
In an article on LGBT website PinkNews earlier this year, Holdsworth called the young child a “gay icon”.
In January Holdsworth allowed a reading from the Quran during a Christian service that included a shocking rebuttal that Jesus was the son of God. One of the main tenets of Christianity is the belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit.
His latest comments drew outrage among believers as well as some traditional clerics. The Rev. Gavin Ashenden, a former royal chaplain, called the comments unchristian.
“To pray for Prince George to grow up in that way” is to “pray in a way that would disable and undermine his constitutional and personal role,” he told Christian Today, an online news outlet, particularly when part of the expectation that the prince would inherit would be “to produce a biological heir with a woman he loves”.
“It is an unkind and destabilizing prayer,” Ashenden said. “It is the theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairy tales.”
Lee Gatiss, director of the Church Society, told Christian Today: “To co-opt the Royal children to service a narrow sexual agenda seems particularly tasteless and, I should add, bizarrely illogical on his own grounds. Is he saying no one can ‘pray the gay away’ but you can pray it into someone?”
Coming just days after Prince Harry — George’s uncle, and fifth in line — announced his engagement to the mixed-race Meghan Markle, a divorced American actress, the suggestion is a fresh challenge to royal tradition and British mores.
The mixed-race couple will tie the knot in May at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, west of London. Church of England has permitted church marriages for divorced people, “in exceptional circumstances” at the discretion of parish priests only since 2002.
According to the Jewish Chronicle, a Jewish “matchmaker” brought Harry and Meghan together. Misha Nonoo is the Jewish best friend of Markle who introduced the actress to the prince in 2016.
But the couple were keen to protect their “matchmaker’s” identity in their first official interview after they announced their engagement just recently.
In 2016 Nonoo was named by the National Council of Jewish Women New York as one of its three “Women Who Dared”, a title given to prominent Jewish female figures. The council said her Middle Eastern “upbringing exposed her to a diverse collection of references, which gave her a deep fascination for exploring the tension that exists between two contradictory forces” and praised her “entrepreneurial spirit”.
Nonoo, is expected to be a guest at the wedding, attended Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton in 2011. Her aunt is Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, the first female Bahraini ambassador to the United States and the first Jewish ambassador of any Arab country.
