The comments, made by the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow in a blog about the four-year-old prince, have drawn criticism.

The Scottish Episcopal Church voted in favour of allowing same-sex marriages this year.

“If people don’t want to engage in campaigning in this way, they do in England have another unique option, which is to pray... for the Lord to bless Prince George with a love, when he grows up, of a fine young gentleman,” he wrote.

“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?”

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Lee Gatiss, the director of the Church Society, said co-opting “the royal children to service a narrow sexual agenda seems particularly tasteless”.

Rev Holdsworth last night released a statement distancing himself from his comments and claiming the blog was written over a year ago.

“This quote seems to be getting a lot of attention because it was picked up by a number of anti-gay campaigners in the Church of England,” he said.

“It is a shame that the happy news about the royal wedding has been hijacked in this way.”

He continued: “The ironic comment that I made quite a while ago could be seen as hurtful to members of the Royal Family, a group of people whom I actually rather admire.

“I’m sorry that something that I wrote has been interpreted in the way that it has. It was not my intention to cause hurt and I regret that this has led to the current focus on Prince George.”

'˜Pray for Prince George to be gay', says Scottish Episcopal minister