The weight of my cross began to make itself felt very soon after my Baptism. During my earlier life as a gay Christian I had agreed to help a friend, Chris, establish a small monthly newsletter magazine called Malchus. Malchus, in the Gospel of St. John, was the high priest’s slave who lost his ear to St. Peter’s sword when the crowd arrived to arrest Jesus. Further, St. Luke’s Gospel records that, though Malchus is not named, Jesus healed his ear before being bound and taken away. These two relatively obscure Scripture texts gave us the background metaphor for Malchus‘s name. St. Peter, representing the Church, routinely attacked and wounded people because of their same-sex attraction, the metaphor went, but Jesus healed us of that attack. Of course, the metaphor’s flip side named our journal after a servant of the high priest, a man arguably one of the Gospel’s wicked characters, but we rarely discussed that part.
–David Morrison, Beyond Gay

Oh man, that’s old-school. That’s like… I used to know who Mattachine and Bilitis were! Although, you know, like everyone past the age of 21, I used to know everything.

More substantively: I’m about halfway through this. It isn’t the book I would have written (…obviously), and I think it starts off on its weakest foot, but I am gaining quite a bit; it’s always good to have companions on the way; and it’s worth reading if you’ve got a personal stake in Ye Olde Gaye Questione. And I note that Morrison shares my loathing of the whole “good people” idea.