A gay Cinderella fantasy

Last March when I watched the series Young Royals that tells the story Wilhelm, Prince of Sweden falling in love with commoner Simon I though there were three possible ways it could end.

Simon could be designated prince consort and become part of the royal family. Simon could decide he could never fit in with the royal family and say goodbye to Wilhelm. Or Wilhelm could give up royalty and go with Simon.

At the time I thought, though I probably didn’t write, that if the first idea is where this is heading shouldn’t the royal family start teaching Simon how to be a royal? They should teach him what would be demanded of him and how to act in public. And get to know him. Which leads me to the book I just finished, The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich. It is the growing love between Jamie and Erik. It is quite the gay fantasy and partly a Cinderella story. Jamie is a typical American in Providence, Rhode Island. He lives with the woman who adopted him when he was one year old and the man she married when he was a pre-teen. On his 17th birthday Mom tells him who is biological parents are. His mother, deceased, was European aristocracy and his father, still very much alive, is King Alexander of Mitanor. Happy birthday, kid, you’re royalty. Your father would like us all to spend several weeks with him at his summer palace. Erik is the second grandson of the Queen of Sunstad. He’s gay and also 17. His bit of fantasy is that Gran thinks it is time for him to have an official boyfriend – yeah, the queen has no problem with him being gay and she is willing to get things going with some matchmaking. Perhaps the mayor’s son will do. Then Alexander calls Erik to say my American son is coming and I’d like you to tutor him in how to act like a royal. Erik feels if a king calls one does not say no. Gran, the queen, says yes, go, but just be friends. You’re not allowed to fall in love. The author reminds us of that. Frequently. Yeah, we know where this is going. Saying that is not a spoiler because there are hints on the cover. It’s still an enjoyable read. Erik does provide lessons in how to shake hands, how to dance, how to eat (and navigate all that silverware), how to handle media interviews, how to use a royal position to influence society, and much more. Cinderella didn’t get these lessons. Actually, that one about influencing society Jamie came up with on his own. Sunstad is briefly described as somewhere near Sweden. Mitanor is between Spain and France. Since Alexander and the lads drive “a few hours” to get from the palace to the coast Mitanor must be a pretty big place, perhaps including about half the Pyrenees Mountains. Perhaps Mitanor is a stand-in for the Catalan region of Spain? While I enjoyed the story there were some things that annoyed me. At the top of the list is it seems the author doesn’t understand time zones. In the morning Jamie texts his friends back in Providence and they respond rather quickly, even though for them it is the middle of the night. Early in the book Jamie and Erik text and it felt like the author got the time difference backwards. The author bio says he was born in Perth and lives in Brisbane, Australia. I’m sure there are time zones there. We see a lot of interaction between Jamie and Erik. We see little between Jamie and his father Alexander. Getting to know his father is the reason for the trip. We see even less between Jamie and his maternal grandparents. And Jamie’s older brother, the heir, is conveniently sent to Florence for the summer. Jamie is the result of a one-night stand his mother had with the king at a time the queen was away. That queen is quite tolerant, even pleased, when her husband’s indiscretion comes for a visit, which is a plus for her character. I’ve never lived in a palace, though I’ve toured a few. Jamie and his American parents are given an apartment in the palace, which is good, but why did it include a kitchen? Were mom and dad expected to cook (they do) and not take advantage of the palace’s chef? I’m puzzled why the big news came when Jamie was 17 and not 18. Once acknowledged as royalty (yeah, news gets out) is he really going to be able to return to Providence for his senior year of high school? The difficulties and dangers aren’t mentioned at all. That whole year is just skipped. And the biggest puzzle – why did Jamie’s bio-mom flee to America and want her son to grow up as American before being told he is royalty? What advantage did she think that gave him? Why was that important to her? Erik did comment a bit on the advantage of Jamie’s upbringing. Jamie was less interested in the societal hierarchy and more interested in getting things done than worry about how his actions affect the monarchy. At the new year I counted how may books I read last year and it came to about one a week. Did I read books that quickly? Yes. I read this one in three days. Getting my winter exercise by walking laps in my basement while reading definitely helped. Seth Masket of Tusk on Substack did research into norm violations as a way to show how political parties and our society have changed. Norms are the mostly-unwritten rules that keep a government and society running. They’re needed when the Constitution is brief or vague or showing its age. They aren’t inherently good. A good norm is the peaceful transfer of presidential power. A bad norm was only men should serve in Congress. Masket researched the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal for events talked about as norm violations or could be seen that way (the term wasn’t used much prior to 2016). He counted events, not the amount of discussion about them. He looked back only to 2010. He looked at which party violated the norm. Prior to 2016 only Democrats violated norms and did it maybe once a year. Starting in 2018 Republicans usually had 6-8 norm violations a year. Things have changed a lot since the nasty guy first sat in the Oval Office. Masket is not surprised that WSJ reported almost solely on Democrat’s norm violations and WaPo reported almost solely on Republican ones. After 2016 nearly every Democratic violation was in response to a Republican violation. An Associated Press article posted on Kos gave the history of Sarah McBride, who served in the Delaware Senate and has become the first trans person to be elected to Congress. It’s a good read. Tim Zeak of the Kos community wrote about people leaving Christianity, including giving a dozen reasons why they have. Baby Boomers and earlier generations lived when there was a lot of the world science could not explain. There was room for supernatural explanations. But science has made great strides – we understand DNA, lightning, and fossils – and access to science is now quite easy. Noah’s flood may have taken place around the Black Sea, but it wasn’t a world-wide event. Here are Zeak’s dozen reasons (summarized): 1. The Bible is too contradictory and ambiguous (there are so many interpretations) to come from a perfect god who should be a clear communicator. 2. Modern discoveries make the story of Adam and Eve, and many stories from the Bible, impossible. 3. Many things portrayed in the Bible – genocide, slavery, rape, animal sacrifice – are now considered immoral. 4. The Bible is anti-woman, with several examples from Deuteronomy. 5. The Bible is racist, with examples from Deuteronomy and Samuel. This racism was deeply incorporated into many denominations. 6. Our ability to travel allow us to observe other cultures and we see ours is not superior in morality and ethics. Having the “right God” did not give a higher standard of morality or greater love. 7. People who were forced to attend and disliked it left as soon as they were independent. 8. Churches, and not just the Catholic Church, protected abusers rather than the abused. 9. The church went political. Over 80% of white evangelicals supported a guy who has none of the virtues they profess as important. Their support of him is about power and white supremacy. 10. Hypocrisy

While many evangelicals try to justify their vote for the protection of the “unborn,” the fact is, that same conservative platform also attempted dozens of times to strip health care from over 20 million people and they fight very hard against any attempts to provide fair housing, fair justice, equal education, equal voting, and safety nets that desperately are needed by families with children who have already been born.

11. LBGTQ issues: A couple verses from Leviticus are declared to be sacred while many other verses in Leviticus (eating pork, clothing with mixed fabric) are ignored. 12. Answers to prayer can be also be caused by natural forces. And many prayers are not answered. The author provided links to articles that provide documentation to what he says here. He noted that this article was published in Excommunications last June.