Many times over this past year, in the midst of my clumsy attempts to get this journal going (It's sort of felt like learning stick shift all over again: You think you've got it, then you lurch forward violently for a few seconds, sit stunned for a moment, and start the damn car once more.), I've had people – mostly genuinely concerned and gentle people – ask me: Why would you create a journal for queer Christians? How many of you are there?

My answer is always the same: Twelve. There are twelve of us. (At this point in the conversation I smile and tell them I'm kidding. Which I am. Mostly.)

It's true that this seems like a bit of a strange niche. Queer Christians tend to fall into the section of the Venn diagram that most people either A) don't think exists (which in most cases is easily rectifiable), or B) vehemently deny is metaphysically possible. 'You can't be gay and Christian!' they say.

Word on the street, though, is that metaphysics can only take you so far. (Buy Martin a beer and he'll tell you why, in the end, he never could finish Being and Time.) And, in any case, the problem, unfortunately, has never been metaphysical. The problem is not whether gay Christians can or should exist. The problem is that we do exist, and that people still consider our existence a metaphysical question.

The question of being queer and Christian is deeply, terribly physical. And immanent. And quotidian. ('See my hands?' I would like to say back. 'See, here: Touch the wound in my side.')

That's partly why I started this journal. I want to affirm that the question of the intersection of queer and Christian has moved, must move – entirely and completely – from the realm of the metaphysical to the realm of the ethical. The question, now, dear friends, as I'm sure you already know, is not ‘What?” but 'How?'