I'll teach the lot and treat them all the same

[limbomonkey]

I'll just preface this with letting people know I have one Jewish and one Catholic parent. If you don't already know that. As such, religious pluralism is very important to me. I go all Hulk when someone is excluded because of their faith. Or who they are. (Which is kind of also why I hated Cody in the Agent of Hel series, but I digress

Comments

[adustierstar]

Your Facebook posts about it made me go looking for her quote(s), and I TOTALLY agree. I'm sure it was a case of staggering ignorance and not intent to offend, but it's a pretty gross thing to say, ESPECIALLY on the heels of the whole "Hogwarts is a safe space for LGBT students" - like, I'm going out of my way to include THIS historically misunderstood and maligned group, and simultaneously going out of my way to exclude this OTHER widely misunderstood and maligned group. Is that okay because one chooses one's religion? Because, you know, lots of people are given a choice early on, and not brought up to believe their parents' religion(s) is the One True Thing

[limbomonkey]

Thanks. I've been fighting some people over this and avoiding others. I know lots of Jews who are all "yay! Jews at Hogwarts," but I feel like that's not something I can celebrate until there is full equality. Which then reminds me that I'm taking it all way too seriously because it's just a book.

It's all kind of ironic considering years ago her books were condemned for promoting witchcraft. And that she thinks religious people can be smug.

[redqueenmeg]

*pops in to say: She's Church of Scotland (Presbyterian)*

[adustierstar]

It's astounding the kind of armor privilege can provide - it's stupid to think a white CofE lady is promoting something like witchcraft because that's not normal, like a white CofE lady would be. And of course only DEVOUTLY religious people (or those who are more observant than she is) are smug - it's not automatic because being nominally Christian religious is what's normal

[limbomonkey]

I want to write fanfic now about a closeted Wiccan student at Hogwarts. Like School Ties or Au Revoir Les Enfants.

[limbomonkey]

Ugh, and on top of all this, I don't understand how fans can be happy that their faith was explicitly included and then also angry at fans who are upset when their faith, or another faith, was explicitly excluded. That's pretty fucking hypocritical. It's like something (inclusion at Hogwarts, in this case) is only worth anything if you can deny it to others.

[adustierstar]

Yay for trickle-down privilege! Well *I* was included, which means it was inclusive enough! You can't expect her to include *everyone*! But why not? It's a bunch of books about an imaginary school for WIZARDS. Surely there can be no rational basis for excluding any particular segment of the real-world population from that...beyond our innate Muggle-hood?

I suspect the biggest reason for this is that a lot of people don't think of Wicca as an actual, legitimate religion, so they don't think it should be on the same level as "real" religions like whatever theirs are. They think it's something weird people do to get attention or something - I don't know. As we all know, one's value as a human being relies solely on how many other human beings one is counted as "better-than" and in how many different arenas.