According to Giles Fraser, a fellow – albeit rather strange – vicar, all it takes is to be “married” to another man and admit to meeting interesting people while dogging. For the sheltered few who are unacquainted with the unappetising term dogging, it’s something most self-respecting dogs would have little interest in:

the practice of carrying out or watching sexual activities in semi-secluded locations such as parks or car parks, often arranged by e-mail or text messages.

From here:

Heroes of 2014: Richard Coles

A happily partnered gay vicar, former pop star and cool radio presenter, Richard Coles is the patron saint of psychological integration.

Most trendy pop stars don’t ask for a new washer-dryer when being signed by their record label. Most Anglican vicars don’t admit to having met the most delightful people out dogging. How does Richard Coles get away with it, with being so many things at he same time?

Pop star and vicar. Lanky, awkward country bumpkin crossed with politically engaged boy-about-town. Confidently high and low brow. Both Radio 4 and Magic FM. A happily partnered gay man in a still deeply homophobic institution. Beneath the effortless exterior of radio-presenter cool must lie a plate spinner of Olympic talent.

Or maybe that should be past tense, because his national treasure status is partly built on the ability to integrate a set of comedy polarities into one quirky and glorious whole. Which means there is always hope for the rest of us. And not just fellow vicars – but everyone who thinks and feels several different and often seemingly contradictory things at the same time: ie everyone. He has become the patron saint of psychological integration.

What excites Giles Fraser’s imagination – well, other than dogging of course – is our hero’s capacity for living with inner conflict, the only virtue left for liberal Anglicans whose chief delight lies in embracing the anarchy of professing one set of beliefs while living by the light of their opposites: anti-existential Anglicanism.