A leading archbishop has said allowing gays to marry is like legalizing male breastfeeding.

In an interview with the UK Catholic Herald, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said fighting for ‘traditional’ marriage is the Christian way of loving God.

‘This is our particular trial,’ he said. ‘And by overcoming it we may achieve spiritual greatness.

‘It will entail suffering if we are to oppose gay marriage, something which poses such destruction to the understanding of natural marriage, which is a child-oriented institution.

‘Legislating for the right for people of the same sex to marry is like legalizing male breastfeeding.’

While straight couples who adopt ‘mirrors the natural union of a mother and a father’, he said gay couples who adopt are going against the natural order.

He added he was fine with straight couples adopting as it ‘mirrors the natural union of a mother and a father’, but said he was against gay couples.

Referring to gay marriage advocates, Cordileone said: ‘If you use theology, you will play into their hands and they will say you use religion to control people.

‘Marriage isn’t primarily in theology; marriage is in nature. Theology builds on the natural institution, giving us a deeper mystical and supernatural sense of its meaning.’

The San Francisco Archbishop also urged people to not use the term ‘gay marriage’ because it is a ‘natural impossibility’.

Cordileone hit headlines last year when it was revealed police arrested the priest for drunk driving.

Despite the arrest, Pope Benedict XVI selected him as San Francisco’s archbishop five days before his court date on 27 July.