Practising

Dear Reader.

Today I'd like to talk about Christianity, homosexuality and the word "Practising". For ages now there's been some talk over who is slowed to become a vicar recently there's been a thing in the church of England over whether there should  be women bishops. But the big one as I'm sure you know is over whether should be  gay/lesbian vicars and some Churches have let them in.
"Brilliant" we say "what a move forward into the modern world this is for the church".
"Yes" the says some Churches "as long as they aren't 'practising'."

"Gay but not practising." now what does that mean?
What, "I would've been gay but I couldn't bother putting in all the hours of practice?"
Its a strange word.

As far as I can tell it means that they're allowed to be sexually or romantically attracted to people of the same sex but they're not allowed to have sex with them. Simple, you may think, a bit of a cop out, most people would argue that 'sex' is quite an important part of the word 'sex'uality in the same way eating vegetables is an important part of the word 'veget'arian so it doesn't really make sense to say someone is allowed to be gay but they aren't allowed to have sex. But it's also a bit of a weird word word because you find yourself wondering what doesn't count as practising, what doesn't count as 'sex' for that matter? when does touching and kissing become sex? I'm not going to go too much detail, in fact I am literally asking a question. Just spend a day or two thinking it over. I expect your answer with examples from both genders and a labelled diagram (just kidding).

Maybe its good that the word "practising" is there. It'll probably keep the nutters happy believing that they're still in control but its just ambiguous enough that it could allow space for them to actually do quite a lot.

The Christian Church's way of keeping people happy is by looking like they've made a decision or perhaps a certain decision when they probably haven't. Maybe they wanted "Practising" priests but they knew people would be pissed or maybe they actually didn't.