It's Just A Story People...

Okay, last week, author J. K. Rowling told the world that one of her characters, Dumbledore, is gay.

I figured I'd leave the story alone, and wait until the raving lunatics of the far right started shrieking. Sure enough, The Peter™ comes out with opens his yap right on cue.

Young children, adolescents, and even many adults fall victim to the specious syllogistic reasoning that goes something like 1. Kindness is good, 2. Homosexuals are kind, 3. Therefore, homosexuality is good. It is clearly a faulty syllogism, and yet it’s wildly successful.

Of course, LaBarbera conveniently ignores the equally invalid syllogism of his entire organization:

1. The Bible Says Homosexuality is Evil
2. The Bible is the inerrant word of God
Therefore...
3. Society should outlaw gay people

But, like picking at an scab over an infected wound, The Peter™ goes on to try and conjure up some connection to the oh-so-evil "gay agenda":

The “gay” manifesto After the Ball written in 1989 describes a number of strategies to be used to transform cultural views of homosexuality, one of which is “conversion” (how very darkly ironic). The authors Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen write that “In Conversion, we mimic the natural process of stereotype learning, with the following effect: we take the bigot’s good feelings about all-right guys, and attach them to the label ‘gay,’ either weakening or, eventually, replacing his bad feelings toward the label and the prior stereotype.” Whether Rowling is aware of this process or not, she is employing it.

This is one of the most significant problems with repeated exposure to positive portrayals of homosexuals in films, television show, plays, novels, textbooks, and speakers. Unsophisticated thinkers come to believe that somehow good behaviors or traits are inherently exculpatory in regard to others. But we should no more say that the sin of homosexuality is effaced by a homosexual’s compassion, generosity, or good humor than we would say that a polygamist’s sin is effaced my his compassion, generosity, or good humor.

The short synopsis - normalizing someone being gay is a bad thing - why? Well...ummm...gee - it might lead to other bad things like polygamy. Sorry Peter, but you'll have to better than a slippery slope argument to convince this audience. Recognizing that people who are different as normal people is not a bad thing.

Nor should we be burning books because we don't like them. In the case of Harry Potter - it's fiction, deal with it.