Albus Dumbledore is Gay!

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bohonato
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Albus Dumbledore is Gay!

Post by bohonato » October 22nd, 2007, 11:26 pm

Rowling says so!

This is amazing, as it is extremely rare for there to be any mainstream presence of a GLBT character in the media, let alone a major character (and for anyone who isn't familiar with Harry Potter, Dumbledore is probably second only to Harry in importance, if not first). As expected, Rowling is caught in a shitstorm of abuse from neaderthals and other small-minded nut-jobs:

"I feel like children's books shouldn't be political -- they shouldn't have political ties, they're entertainment," attendee Katie Beach said. "I think it's pretty ridiculous for her to say that or to do that."
(quoted from the ABC account)

Cause homosexuality exists only in the political arena. Unlike Katie Beach, myself and countless other gay, lesbian, trans, bi, and queer persons don't have the luxury of examining the issue of gay rights only when an election rolls around.

Nor will you ever hear anyone claim that all the heterosexual relationships in Harry Potter, or any other media for that matter, are politically motivated. (its because homosexual stories are exclusive, while heterosexual stories are universal)

And I'm pretty sure than in the midst of a so-called children's book that invovles murder, war, torture, and quite a lot of disturbing events, a homosexual character (a theme, by the way, never explored in the books themselves outside of some vague hints) is the worst nightmare for parents.

While my joy of Albus Dumbledore coming out of the closet is quite immense, its turned bittersweet by the ever present latent homophobia that permeates our society. Heaven forbid your children grow up to be tolerant of others.

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hester_prynne
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Post by hester_prynne » October 23rd, 2007, 4:12 am

I think it was a brilliant time for him to come out and although I am a heterosexual I have to say I am delighted that he came out too!

I want to say that for me, the homophobia this time somehow seems to actually have a potential to it that I sense could really get a sizable number of people to get over it!!!!!! It's so damn ridiculous. I can only hope I'm right.

H 8)
"I am a victim of society, and, an entertainer"........DW

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Arcadia
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Post by Arcadia » October 23rd, 2007, 1:04 pm

Albus Dumbledore? who is he? I´ve only seen Harry Potter II and tried to read some pages of the book some years ago and found it sooo boring that I had to say to the kid that gave me the book only thanks. Congratulations, anyway!!

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joel
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Re: Albus Dumbledore is Gay!

Post by joel » October 24th, 2007, 12:59 pm

bohonato wrote:(its because homosexual stories are exclusive, while heterosexual stories are universal)

Heaven forbid your children grow up to be tolerant of others.
I like that you point out the nay-sayers' heteronormative assumptions...how many of us actually wear their crowns of man-and-wife white-picket fence?

Reading the article you linked, it doesn't appear Dumbledore recently chose sides, but (gasp!) was conceived (sexuality as a part of who we are from the the c-word?!?! gasp again!) as an integrated character from the beginning of the serires--including (yet undefined by) his sexuality. What does this facet of knowing him change about him? Is he somehow less Dumbledorey now? Note to world: heterosexism (like any bigotry/prejudice) is fear of real life as it is and has always been.

Score one for humanity that doesn't fit fools' limiting assumptions. ...but let's not make tolerance the goal.... Our kids are saddled with the expectation (premeditated dissapointments) of being stellar athletes, beuty queens, academic whiz-kids who figure out how to complete all the levels of a video game in one weekend. Certainly we can raise the bar higher than toleration...implying that what is wrong is wrong, but at a base level tolerable. Disagreement isn't bad...but can we aim to do more than tolerate those with whom we disagree?
"Every genuinely religious person is a heretic, and therefore a revolutionary" -- GBShaw

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » October 25th, 2007, 9:34 am

Not a parent boho
so I don't know what
is the worst nightmare for parents.
I can only imagine
it would not be that.

From the ABC news article:
"A homosexual lifestyle is a harmful one," she added. "That's proven, medically." ....anti-Potter crusader is Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Georgia
That's an interesting factoid. I would like to see the data on that.
Certainly we can raise the bar higher than toleration...implying that what is wrong is wrong, but at a base level tolerable. Disagreement isn't bad...but can we aim to do more than tolerate those with whom we disagree?
More than tolerance?
I don't know joel
my karma ate my dogma
But...
I can think of a lot of people who are happy to just be tolerated
me one of them.
It was a face that needed soap and water and Christian tolerance. I started to paint it with small heart
Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar speaking of her appearance after her suicide attempt
That bit kind of stuck with me for some reason.
I would not undervalue tolerance
the world could use more of it.


sorry boho

did not mean to get so far off topic
Plath's lack of tolerance for the lesbian room mate in The Bell Jar
comes to mind.

Some of us have it easier than others
we get to choose our orientation
the least we can do is be tolerant of our differences.
I have heard it said that all men are latent homosexuals
One of my earliest nightmares I can remember was about being taken down through a man hole into an underground hospital where little boys are changed into girls.
Must have neen after I got my foreskin caught in a zipper one day.

If I am gay
I don't want no truck with it
men are so got damn boring

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joel
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Post by joel » October 25th, 2007, 10:14 am

Ok, you're right ST...I oughtn't undervalue tolerance....

Yet I do still hope we can move beyond mere toleration at some point.

In about a week, I'll be granted the civil authority to join heterosexual couples in marriage and homosexual couples in civil unions. I give thanks that I will be in state and a church that tolerate the legal and ecclesiastical commitments two people make to each other. But there's a twinge in that toleration that it is still a mere toleration of an other within the heteronormative matrix of reality. I don't think I've heard many people advocate swinging from the heteronormative to the homonormative...but wouldn' it be awesome if, rather than a sexually based norm, we had a homo-sapiens-normative culture for love-life-faith-commitment-etc?

I'm not trying to be difficult...it's my idealist healer talking(...but that's also my favorite inner talker...).
"Every genuinely religious person is a heretic, and therefore a revolutionary" -- GBShaw

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » October 25th, 2007, 10:47 am

Most Christians to Left of Far Right
By Michael Livingston


It should come as no surprise that a recent opinion poll among younger people shows great skepticism if not outright resistance to Christianity. Given the preponderance of mainstream media reporting on a minority of U.S. Christians such attitudes make sense.

The research done by George Barna and released in September shows the younger generation, ages 16-29, views Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical, old-fashioned and too political.

Assuming the impressions of these young respondents are shaped by the media they would only know about the extreme ultra-conservative brand of Christianity. Most Christians in the U.S. are not that. Most Christians believe in an authentic, inclusive and welcoming gospel in the thousands of communities where they worship.


One of its chief cheerleaders is Ann Coulter. She has dismissed most of the Bible and the words of Jesus defending the poor, the widow, the prisoner—the least among us—and spewed her venom that has little or nothing to do with orthodox Christianity. But Ms. Coulter and her ilk are the ones to whom the media gives most of its attention.

I suspect these young opinion poll takers are responding to what I call a political philosophy masquerading as gospel that is wrapped in religious rhetoric and painted red, white and blue.

Recently on CNBC’s "Big Idea with Donny Deutsch", Ms. Coulter said America would be better off if there were no Jewish people here and that Christians are “perfected Jews.” The whole conversation was offensive which, I suspect, is what the media loves about her. But there used to be a time when such words of hatred and intolerance were not given any public platform in the mainstream media.

No longer. Now we have newspapers and news channels giving extended coverage to those perverting the gospel with attitudes alien to its reconciling heart. The Wall Street Journal last year gave front page coverage to Christian Zionists. The recent “Values Voters” summit in Washington received great attention from the media not for the “Christianity” they represent but the political power at the ballot box they wield.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfa ... f_far.html
sorry about the long quotation



The norm
the great hump in the middle of the bell curve
we must tolerate them
us lonely travellers out on the tail ends of the curve



Does your inner talker speak to you of Abraham's god"
I have come to question Abraham's god
it seems to me some shady real estate deals went down



I am a coward joel
and you know what they say about fear of the lord
I know what is at stake here.
But I put my trust in Spinoza's god
is that the same thing?
I have never read spinoza
but he was good enough for Einstein
I'll risk my life on that.


you are going to do good work joel
somebody has to pastor to all those norms

You are not difficult joel
you are easy as a yoke

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » October 25th, 2007, 10:57 am

just my vanity joel
I was born to follow
I know that.

But I can follow from where ever I am
the bell curve seems so mystical to me
our variations

I got friend
I call the jitterbug
he wrote a song that had the lines
"You can't be any better than the worse you recognize"

watched john hagee talkabout Augustus Ceaser
the noblest roman of them all he said
but
he did not mention how old gus like to have the slave boys swimming between hes legs in the imperial baths

fight that good fight joel
the son bitch hypocrites getting all the ink
Last edited by stilltrucking on October 25th, 2007, 2:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » October 25th, 2007, 11:32 am

Image

Anderson in
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... #editorial

Marriage just not for all of us
straight or gay
some of us just have to live
in and or sin

I just want to be happy
that's my choice

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Arcadia
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Post by Arcadia » October 25th, 2007, 8:38 pm

Yet I do still hope we can move beyond mere toleration at some point. interesting turn of the thread!!! I felt similar to joel about the word "tolerance" and what it usually implies. There is something like an urgent-nervous-superiority or an indifference matiz in the word as it is used (at least here). But I also agree with s-t that sometimes I thank to tolerate and be tolerated.

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » October 25th, 2007, 9:07 pm

S: (n) tolerance (willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others)
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tolerance
what does that imply?

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mnaz
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Post by mnaz » October 25th, 2007, 9:26 pm

"Tolerance", it would seem, can have shades of both positive and negative connotations in primary and secondary senses. On the negative side, for example in a more primary sense, "tolerance" of exploitive or abusive practices across sharp cultural divides, or for example in a more secondary sense, the question of why some should feel a need to "tolerate" others sexual orientation (as if it were inherently suspect or inferior) in the first place.

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » October 25th, 2007, 9:32 pm

Why should ones religious preferences require toleration?

The Virginia Act of Religious Toleration was one Jefferson's proudest achievements I have read somewhere.

I can't knock toleration
It has been good to me.
But you know I am crazy.

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bohonato
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Post by bohonato » October 25th, 2007, 10:08 pm

I suppose one could argue that tolerance/tolerate implies that the one being tolerated is somehow unwelcome or in the wrong. I'm not good with semantics though. Acceptance? That has connotations of approval, and while it would be nice, I don't think its very realistic. At least not now.

hester: I hope you're right too! Some of the most important people in the struggle are our allies. Thank you.

Arcadia Albus Dumbledore was the head of the school Harry went to, and considered the most important and strongest wizard in the Harry Potter universe. I didn't really like the films, they kind of disregarded the plot and decided to concentrate on special effects. I not going to claim that the Harry Potter series was great literature, but I enjoyed them. (I can't think of anyone I know who wouldn't know who Albus Dumbledore is!)

stilltrucking I would think that parent's would have worst nightmares as well, but some people are really bad parents.
"A homosexual lifestyle is a harmful one," she added. "That's proven, medically." ....anti-Potter crusader is Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Georgia
As far as I could figure out, she must mean the risk of HIV/AIDS, but if that's so, she must be stuck in the 1980s.
sorry boho
did not mean to get so far off topic
Don't worry about it. I find that you never really get as off topic as you claim to.

joel
In about a week, I'll be granted the civil authority to join heterosexual couples in marriage and homosexual couples in civil unions. I give thanks that I will be in state and a church that tolerate the legal and ecclesiastical commitments two people make to each other.
That's awesome. Closest place to get married here is Canada (homosexually speaking, of course. However, if the border guards know that you're gay, they assume that you're smuggling crystal meth or something, put everyone in the car in interrogation, and strip your car. Neither kidding nor exaggerating.)

You're ELCA, right? If so, my mother will be thrilled. I was brought up Evangelical Lutheran, and my mother is determined that I will be married in the church. I hear what you're saying about toleration being based on the assumption that heteronormative society is correct and even what the GLBT community should aim for. There are those who argue that the GLBT community shouldn't ask for the right to marriage or civil unions for that reason.

Personally, I feel that religious/spiritual marriages should be separate from legal marriages anyway. If a particular religious institution does not wish to perform a same-sex marriage, etc. then I suppose that's their prerogative. I have no patience with the US government and its babble about the sanctity of marriage (what was the divorce rate again?). Its strange that in places, such as Michigan, where one cannot be legally wed, there are always hip ministers/pastors/priests who are willing to do a religious/spiritual ceremony. Like that article ST quoted, the media gives nutters like Ann Coulter the front page, but it seems that most progressive members of a community are firmly religious.

And don't worry about being difficult. I hold that discussion is one of the best ways to head towards progress. And speaking of progress, this thread seems to have done just that while I was writing my responses.

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bohonato
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Post by bohonato » October 25th, 2007, 10:12 pm

And to clarify my original statement, I meant tolerance along the line of stilltrucking's definition, as in a willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others.

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