Excessive long replies to the excessively long topic (Tolerance)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Susan wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34018>:

<< When Fred Phelps pickets the funerals of dead Iraqi soldiers with
signs that say "God Hates Fags", it gives credence and credibility to
those who believe just that. >>

No,it doesn't. Sadly, there are many people who react differently to
Fred Phelps picketing the funerals of dead gay people than to Fred
Phelps picketing the funerals of dead heterosexual-or-didn't-tell US
service members who died in US wars. ('Sadly' because the survivors of
the dead gay person deserve as much compassion as the survivors of the
dead soldier. The soldier may have died serving his/her country rather
than as a crime victim, accident victim, disease patient, whatever,
but the family members are equally bereaved.)

Many people who tsk-tsk in passing at the pain the picketing causes to
family members of the dead gay civilian but feel supportive of a right
to hate same-sex attraction, feel angry outrage at picketing the
funerals of dead soldiers, and in some cases this angry outrage
spreads so wide that it causes them to question the root cause, hatred
of same-sex attraction.

Susan wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34041>:

<< one CAN control what one believes, and one can control what one
DOES..... >>

One can control what one does, but one cannot control what one
believes. People change their beliefs only as a result of some
experience, or perhaps of a long process of thought about 'Why this?
Why that? Is that a contradiction?". People can not change their
beliefs just by an act of willpower: "I will believe that the sky is
yellow, I will believe that the sky is yellow, I will..."

Del wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34043>:

<< WHO ASSIGNED YOU AS THOUGHT POLICE OFFICER??? >>

And who assigned you to ask who assigned Susan as Thought Police
Officer? (I felt a need to say that even tho' Katie said it in the
next post.)

It seems to me that all of us in this conversation feel that Truth and
Goodness assigned us to state the true facts and good beliefs ('if not
me, who? if not now, when?'). Unfortunately, we don't agree which
facts are true and which beliefs are good.

Katie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34045>:

<< I don't think it's any better to say, "I disapprove of
homosexuality, but it's not okay to deny them jobs, housing, or
medical care...etc." than it is to just be openly prejudiced and
bigoted against them. Tolerating those kinds of belief systems are
what opens the door to ACTS of bigotry. It's just a lesser form of it. >>

I disagree with you. Being a lesser form of bigotry is not good, but
it is better than being a bigger form of bigotry. (As Tonks wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34052>.)

Del wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34046>:

<< OK, so *what* would you have people who hold those beliefs DO? Not
exist? Deny their own beliefs? Go through some brain-washing treatment
to adopt the current PC beliefs? What?? >>

While everyone who disagrees with me about anything SHOULD realise
that disagreeing with me is proof that they are wrong, and should
therefore seek out whatever brain-washing treatment is needed for them
adopt MY beliefs (regardless of whether my beliefs are currently PC or
not), in the case of people who loved all seven Harry Potter books
until Rowling said Dumbledore is gay, but since she made that
statement, they can't stand to re-read the books and won't let their
children read the books, I think they should brain-wash themselves to
forget that Rowling ever said anything about sexual orientation in any
of her interviews. Then they could be happy again and cease whining,
and cease paining people who are pained by the content of their whining.

[Del wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34127>: <<
That's true of adults who don't have kids who read HP and who have
heard about the gay comments. As much as parents might manage to
"forget" about it, they can't just tell their kids to forget about it
too: they have to deal with it, even if they don't want to. >> I think
they can tell their kids that that was just a stupid thing Rowling
said in an interview and it has nothing to do with the books. They can
even say that Rowling said it just to get headlines. I *suppose* your
next argument is that the kids would then ask something like "How
could anyone have said that Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald?
Men never fall in love with men, only with women?" To me, that is not
Rowling's fault. I can't imagine that kids would never hear of men
falling in love with men somewhere else, maybe in political arguments
about same-sex marriage.] 

And I have always questioned how much of a virtue tolerance really is.
Like Tonks, I have friends with whom I disagree on some fairly
important subjects, and I don't bring those subjects up in
conversation. When the friends bring those subjects up in
conversation, sometimes I just change the subject. Other times I feel
the need to gently remind them that I disagree. I inwardly question
whether it is bad of me to be friends and tolerant of people who
believe such things.

Katie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34049>:

<< I just wonder why tolerance and acceptance suddenly stops when it
comes to sexuality. >>

A good real-world question, but a thought-world intro to my
questioning of whether tolerance is a virtue (in my reply to Del,
immediately above). Where should tolerance stop?

Should I be tolerant of people who are prettier than me? Of course! 

Even if they spend a lot of time working on and talking about ways to
be pretty, like exercise, diet, make-up, clothing, underwear, cosmetic
surgery... Of course I should be tolerant. 

Even if they say that supervisors writing annual reviews of employees
should think that people are sloppy in their work because of being
sloppy in their clothing, and are stupid in their work because of
being fat? Only if they change 'should' to 'unconsciously will'. (At
this point I think Del would accuse me of being Thought Police for
nagging them into changing their statement.)

If they advocate that fat, ugly, and sloppy employees should be fired,
regardless of how good at the job, so that the workplace will look
more 'professional'? This is the point where my tolerance and
acceptance of them 'suddenly stops'. 

If they get into a position of power from which they actually do fire
good workers for being fat, ugly, or sloppy? I think this is the point
where Del's tolerance (Del?) would suddenly allow her to say she
disapproved of that behavior of theirs.

If they formed a gang to go around killing fat, ugly, sloppy people so
that the world will be a more beautiful place? Most people would say
that extrajudicial killing should not be tolerated, altho' some will
insist that advocacy of extrajudicial killing is speech not actions
and therefore should be tolerated. Most of those will agree that
counter-advocacy should be tolerated for the same reasons, including
yelling nasty things at them along their parade route.

Should we be tolerant of purebloods who keep track of their pure
genealogy? When they talk about purebloods being superior and
deserving special-good treatment? When they descriminate in hiring?
When they fire good employees just for having too much Muggle 'blood'
in their ancestry? When they take away the wands of Muggle-borns? When
they kill the Muggle-borns 'for resisting'? If they kill the Muggle-
borns officially, having passed a law making it a capital crime to be
a Muggle-born wizard?

[credit to Susan for having already posted something similar: 
Susan wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34106>: 
<< After all, the DeathEaters had the right to believe that being a
mudblood made you inferior, right? And they could say it all they
liked as long as they didn't DO anything about it, right? That IS the
argument? And if they believe that, I'm supposed to be tolerant of
their beliefs? >>]

Del wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34068>:

<< She pandered to the wishes of those readers throughout the 7 books,
by creating a strictly heterosexual society, and by writing DD as an
asexual character. AFTER the 7 books were out, and AFTER a good
deal of those aforementioned readers had BOUGHT and read the books,
she outed DD. >>

I acknowledge that for some listies, it is a matter of Rowling has
their permission write anything she chooses in the books but is
forbidden by them to say anything about the story or the characters
anywhere but in the text of the books.

But, if she had outed DD in the 7th book, after 6 books of asexual DD
and strictly heterosexual WW, most of 'those readers' (the ones who
wanted a book with no homosexual characters in it) would have been
just as angry. Most of them would think she had tricked them by
writing 6 books the way they wanted and suddenly being different in
the last book. Many of them would have already bought all 7 books,
buying DH as soon as it was released, before the news media reported
The Big Outing. 

Del wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34120>:

<< I don't think it's wise to drag Aberforth into this discussion. I
mean, in a WW where only heterosexuality is ever mentioned, we have
two brothers, one gay and one apparently into bestiality... Unless you
consider it a complete coincidence that the ONLY character versed into
bestiality happens to be the brother of the ONLY gay character, you
can't help but wonder about the message JKR is sending here. I do, at
least. >>

I got the 'inappropriate charms on a goat' joke from writer to reader,
but I never thought it was inside the story. I thought 'inappropriate
charms on a goat' might be to make it speak in English, thus amazing
Muggles and risking the Statute of Secrecy. Then I believed someone
else's suggestion that he was trying to remove bezoars from goats'
stomachs without harming the goats.

Where my mind is dirty is where each brother revealed that his heart
was incurably broken for life by the little sister's death. Especially
in Albus's telling, I said: "Don't make me think he was an incestuous
pedophile!" When Rowling said he was gay, that was a big relief to me.

Del wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34125>:

<< I'd hate to live in a world where, say, pedophiles are not being
discriminated against. >>

People can control their actions, but they can't control to what they
are sexually attracted. If a person is sexually attracted to little
children, but controls him/her/self and lives a celibate and asexual
life, I don't think it's fair to discriminate against him/her.