Stories Marvel Probably Won't Let Me Do: What If. . . Captain America Were Gay?

There was a thread a while back on scans_daily about Civil War, which (SD being SD) re-cast the whole thing as a lovers' tiff between Steve and Tony. (It was actually prompted by a scan I posted here and found unintentionally homoerotic, mostly because of the odd blocking which gave us two gratuitous crotch shots in as many panels. Mmm, tasteful.) As user kirke_novak puts it:

"But one day Steve will say ENOUGH and leave and Tony's bitches don't leave him! He'll start drinking again and before we know, Thor!clone is kiling people around because NO ONE LEAVES TONY STARK! ARGH!

It's sad. So many broken lives because Iron Man can't take 'we are OVER, buddy! Don't call me!' for an answer :("

Heheheh.

Anyway. It got me thinking: what if...? Because an interesting fact that not many people know is that while the US armed forces have had a "no queers" policy for many decades, during World War II that policy was unofficially allowed to lapse by many officers, for the simple reason that the forces couldn't afford to pick and choose among those capable of serving, and a lot of the best servicemen and women were queer. Post-war, it was a different story; it's well known that women who'd done invaluable war work when they were needed were booted back into the kitchen once the crisis was over, and a similar restriction of attitudes occurred in re homosexuality.

And, well, Steve Rogers became a soldier during the war, didn't he? At a time when the policy was "don't ask, don't tell", in deed if not in law.

It's a What If? that for obvious reasons Marvel is highly unlikely to publish, but it's got hold of my imagination in the craziest way. If a gay Steve Rogers became Captain America in the canonical way, fought the Nazis in the canonical way, and got frozen before the war ended, then got unfrozen in, oh, let's say, the mid-1960s... Well. The US government of the time might not be too pleased once they found out (as they inevitably would, since Cap is much too honest and straightforward to be capable of remaining closeted, and much too good-looking to stay single for long) that their country's poster boy was a faggot. And Cap wouldn't take kindly to being told that his sexual orientation made him persona non grata despite his long and distinguished record of service. Place him in a gay bar that gets raided by overenthusiastic police (which was a frequent occurrence at the time) (yes, yes, I know Cap doesn't drink; maybe he's meeting somebody -- c'mon, work with me here) and he certainly wouldn't let the patrons get beaten up. He'd fight back, standing up for their rights as Americans. Captain America fighting cops who are beating up queers? That would make front page news. Especially since it would be swiftly followed by a disavowal of Cap by the government, and that would almost certainly be followed by an announcement by Cap that, damn it all, he IS the Captain America who fought the Nazis, he has served his country to the best of his ability, and still does; and his sexuality has never gotten in the way of his desire to do his duty and never will.

With a figurehead so famous, so revered, and so identified with American values, the gay rights movement in the USA would suddenly find itself with a much, much better press than it was used to. It's not in character for Cap to go in for political campaigning, but then, he wouldn't really need to. All he'd have to do is be himself (and maybe occasionally show up for press conferences).

I know Marvel are never going to publish this story -- and, indeed, it would take a very deft hand to make the story interesting and entertaining without hitting the readers over the head with the moral -- but man, I would so love to write it.