Recent content by jakewilson

Obvious choice is Henry Benedict Stuart, who was Dean of the College of Cardinals. Not a reigning monarch, but still. I also had a wonderful and improbable vision of Queen Christina disguising herself a man, becoming ordained, and rising through the hierarchy.

Except that the Dutch weren't in WWI but are in this one, so I'm not sure that 'no WWI' equates to there being loads more Dutch people. And anyway, I should think that the prospect of indefinite foreign rule in the DEI isn't a positive thing.

I hate this persistent myth that fascism would have strengthened the West's position. Beck and Goerdeler's coup attempt against the SDP nearly cost us the war. It's not like there haven't been decent, honest figures on the European Right, Pierre Laval for instance, that completely lack the taint...

I'm tired of these sick and morbid scenarios where marginal far-right figures like Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill somehow manage to take power in stable, developed democracies. It's almost as bad as that execrable reactionary fantasy that has General Eisenhower seizing power in the 50s.

I'm rather optimistic on Julian's ability to keep paganism going during a long reign, but I don't think that Christianity really can be destroyed at this point. Looking at the example of Hinduism (which ought to be people's first example when considering TLs contemplating the survival of...

You generally have to have witnesses to prove sodomy, so it's more difficult than it sounds, you can't just arrest someone for being gay. If they entrapped him in a cruising sting, or arrested him as disorderly for socializing in public with other gay people, or convinced his close family to...

The problem with the concept that, in order to gain traction, there a.) cannot be a country where people can flee to. Homophobic violence must be all-pervasive. I.e. the world before 1970. b.) In such a world, no one will recognize a gay nation. And given the example from OTL...

The fertility isn't the problem. The problem is that the vast majority of the kids would be heteros. The hypothetical nation would have to reject reproduction altogether or become just another microstate within a generation. The fact of the matter is that we aren't like national minorities at...

It occurs to me that Key West is really gay, and everyone loves the Conch Republic. Would a mostly gay sovereign state count, or does it have to be a state created explicitly as a gay homeland?

To go back very far, it was possible in many Greek polities for a young man to increase his social-political standing by 'marrying up' into a higher class. Thebes provides the most famous example of same-sex relationships providing an entree to the political-military elite, but on Crete a youth...

Gay people in tolerant countries are better off staying put, and gay people in intolerant countries are better off emigrating to tolerant ones. The cost of building such a nation makes the whole project unfeasible, even if gay people had a desire to abandon our nations and our straight family...

I believe this is it, though I've also read that might be a pun on 'Lord of the Heavenly House.' The Old Testament often uses puns to mock foreign gods and people, e.g. Jezebel, whose name means 'the Lord is exalted,' while the Hebrew form puns it as 'she without husband/lord' (i.e., a whore).

There were plenty of people in he ancient Levant who worshipped Moloch, Beelzebub, Belphegor, and other Semitic gods that the priesthood demonized over time. The accuser himself is bit more difficult, since he seems to have originally been conceived of as a servant of Yahweh rather than having...

It would certainly help his legacy, he'd be held in honor rather than contempt nowadays. I mean, it would have really groundbreaking.

I could see him politically surviving for a while after about 1973, but not before. I don't think that being gay was much of a problem for the Liberals' base at that point, but I'm not an expert or even a Briton.