What’s it like to be gay and a priest? I feel like a second-class citizen in the Church of England | Charlie Bell

The church made me answer prurient questions in order to be ordained – and if I were to enter a civil marriage, I’d essentially be sacked

• Charlie Bell is an Anglican priest in the diocese of Southwark

In many ways, my partner and I are quite boring and conventional. We may have met through a dating app – very 21st century – but otherwise there’s been nothing particularly scandalous or unusual about how we do things. Quite frankly, most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

Except, of course, for the fact that I’m a priest in the Church of England – and that’s where the problems begin. For while the rest of the country seems able to see the clear and unambiguous good that springs from same-sex relationships, the church continues to drag its heels. For years, in fact, it has told us that there’s nothing good at all about our love for one another – that it’s something to be shunned, embarrassed about, even erased. Our love is, ultimately, a problem.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/eGsTn0g