It’s that time of year for looking back on the past 12 months, and anticipating the next, but I’m not going to go into that in any depth.

As many other sites have pointed out, in many respects it has been a great year for the cause of LGBT equality. One highlight was approval for gay marriage in New York, and also civil unions in Illinois, Hawaii and Rhode Island. Internationally, civil partnerships took effect in Ireland, and full marriage has been promised for Denmark (2o12, including church weddings), Finland and the UK. Brazil quietly achieved de facto marriage equality by court decision, civil unions promised for Chile, and possibly other countries in South America. Public support for gay marriage crossed the 5o% threshold in the US, and is even stronger elsewhere.

DADT was repealed, and with it gays in the military acquired a public face, dramatically illustrated by the Navy “first kiss” earlier this month. Now, the struggle turns to giving full practical effect to that equality, in housing and other staff benefits. In the rest of the world, “equality” means something much more basic, the freedom from criminal sanctions and public persecution, but there too, there is progress: pressure is building for basic LGBT rights worldwide, both from internal pressures in these countries, and from external pressure, from international organizations and Western governments.

In the churches, progress was symbolized right at the start of 2011, by a New Year’s Day wedding of two lesbian priests in Boston’s Episcopal Cathedral, and capped later by the US Presbyterian Church’s ratification of the 2010 vote to leave the matter of approval for openly lesbian or gay clergy to local decision, thus opening the way for publicly approved ministry for at least some such pastors. The Scottish Kirk took a similar decision, and queer clergy are becoming more visible in many other denominations, worldwide.

Even in the Catholic Church, there has been significant progress. While much of the public attention has been focussed on the fuss over some bishops’ strenuous opposition to gay marriage, there has been less attention on what was not said: there has been very little hostility publicly expressed by Church spokesmen to homoerotic relationships themselves. On the few occasions where priests have spoken or acted in a manner seen to be overtly homophobic, in Canada, in Texas, or in Australia, they have been smartly smacked down by their bishops. In London, the Archbishop of Westminster has even acknowledged that there is a good case to be made for the value of civil unions/partnerships.

All of this has been adequately documented elsewhere, and in my own previous posts. I’m not going to push the point.

Instead, I want to engage in a more personal reflection: this time also represents three completed years since I launched Queering the Church. How have I done?

On balance, I end the year on a high, but it’s undoubtedly been a difficult year, during much of which I was battling to keep going, against threatening depression and poor mental state. To explain this, I need to make a little more self - disclosure.

When I began QTC three years ago, I had very modest intentions. I had no idea how extensively it was going to take over my life - but as it did so, in a very big way, I came to see it in very serious terms. Viewed in the light of the extraordinary retreat I have previously described, and the assessment of that retreat by my spiritual director, I came to see this blog as quite simply the most important priority for my time: in effect, my day job. Writing, thinking about it, reading for it, and technical considerations for it, taken together with time spent on other forms of LGBT ministry with the Soho Masses, have pretty well taken up as much time as regular full-time employment - but unpaid.

Free of dependents, and living with a partner, I don’t need a substantial income - but I do need something. For the basic income that I need, I work at two low grade part-time jobs. Five or six nights a week, I deliver pizzas for less than the minimum wage, and in due season, I also do work for the local university, invigilating exams. Neither of these is particularly stimulating, but they do have the advantage of offering time for reflection - and sometimes, the opportunity to catch up on some reading or even writing. Between them, I have been able to secure sufficient wherewithal to keep going - but at a cost.

Working virtually a full day at this blog and associated activities, and six nights a week for income, added to time for necessary household chores and domestic obligations to my partner, daughter and granddaughter have left in effect no time over for - me. It was this recognition, that I was not getting any time for simple R&R, that first brought on the threatened depression I was battling against for much of the year - but I kept pushing, and came through it. I end the year on a much more positive note.

First, recognizing the need for time out, I simply accepted that sometimes, I could stand back, and leave the blog to itself for a day or two. I simply stopped posting as frequently as I once did. I also started to spend more time on related matters which I could do for the simple fun of it, without taking them too seriously - my satellite secular sites, Queers in History, and Its a Queer World, which have been fun.

Then, there’s been the support of my readers. In recent months, readership figures have have shown some clear improvements, after some stagnation following the host migration in March. Cumulative page loads since inception passed the quarter million mark, and in the same week, total page loads passed 1000 in a day. Engagement with the comments threads, and private correspondence with readers, has also increased, for which I am grateful: a highlight here has been the astonishing and delightful response to the story of my alleged demonic possession, which had me literally laughing myself to sleep, last night.

Reader support has kept me going - but I need more. I need your encouragement, in comments or by email. I need you to help promote the site, to help me build readers. I need your help, writing for the site: there’s no reason at all why this should be exclusively a place for my voice, alone. Write to me, if you are interested (especially those of you who are women, or trans, or young. I want fresh perspectives). And - I need more income from the site, to reduce the time I have to spend delivering pizza. Help me to increase the readership, and that will increase the present trickle of income I get from advertising. Make your Amazon purchases through my links, and I earn a small percentage in affiliate income. Or, if you can, make a small donation, through the Paypal donate button, top right.

Looking ahead, I want to concentrate, in 2012, on consolidation rather than expansion. I will continue to share as best I can, my perspectives on queer faith, and relevant news items of importance to our community. Alongside this, I plan to spend more time on the neglected back pages, which are intended as a more permanent resource - especially the pages on saints & martyrs, and the proposed book that will be based on them. I also hope (finally) to tidy up the book pages, that I originally expected would be a major feature of the site, but which have been badly neglected.

Whether I can keep to those intentions, remains to be seen. What I can promise, is that no matter how much the orthotoxic Catholic blogs might protest my (supposed) blasphemy and heresy, I’m not going away. This site remains my number one priority, which I will continue to feed and maintain as long as I am able.

God bless you all for your support - have a great 2012, one and all.