I thought at first that it was just bad writing, rather harmless, but then I realized just how dangerous this story really was. In the story, Voldemort is an atheist who wants to outlaw Christianity. Hermione is afraid, and cries, "I don't like lions!"
I remembered that because apparently a member of Gryffindor House doesn't like lions. You can probably guess what the Gryffindor symbol is, if you don't already know. And Gryffindor in this story represents "True Christians" (registered trademark). (Although Hermione, in the fan fiction, has a kitten on her hat instead of a lion, because apparently there is no such thing as lionesses, and I guess all the lions are gay. I don't think the author thought through the implications of denying this mighty symbol of Christ to Christian women. If I suspected she was more thoughtful, I would have assumed lionesses were objectionable because they were females and provided for the Pride. But in any case, we should have known Aslan was in the closet.)
But Hermione's comment makes me wonder: Does the author think that that's what atheists want to do--feed them to the lions? I was on atheist forums for a while a few years ago, and still read stuff written by atheists such as Libby Anne of the blog Love, Joy, Feminism (though she doesn't really talk about atheism specifically very often).
But even when I explored the more anti-religion aspects of atheist media, and even when some people were mocking religion and Christians, I have never seen anyone even joke about feeding Christians to lions. If some people do that (and I'm sure there are some, since rape jokes also exist), they're not trying to make it legal to actually do it. (Ironically, there were people trying to make it legal to kill gay people--not only in Uganda, but in California. And I'm too lazy and don't want to upset myself by linking to it.)
But no bills have been introduced to make it legal to kill Christians. Not even from LGBT people, which I'm sure the author thinks just as bad or worse than atheists.
How many conservative Christians think that the days of the lions will soon return? My own family has been paranoid of this happening, and I live in Oregon, not the Bible Belt. A great aunt euphemistically said, "I think things will just get harder and harder."
My uncle has said that Obama was setting himself up as God, and that the government would soon want chips implanted to track people. "But not the gay couple down the street," he added bitterly. I'm not sure there was a gay couple down the street, or if the phrase was a rhetorical device. Either way, he's eventually going to find out that that's good news for me. Apparently I don't have to choose between keeping my soul or my head.
(This was a few years ago, and I recently worked up the courage to tell him that I was afraid of him as a child. He responded surprisingly well, and hasn't said homophobic things around me in a while, so he may or may not have changed in his hostility.)
Comedian Cody Melcher, in his podcast about strange books, has said what my own experience has proven too: That Christians were also afraid after the marriage equality ruling of 2015. He also says that Christianity as a religion relies on the concept of persecution, that they tell themselves they are the underdogs even when they are in power, and that that is also how they gain power. This is a particularly fascinating episode, if you can stand to hear Melcher and his guests talk about the homophobia in the book they are reviewing (Melcher and guests are all gay):
This is the episode reviewing Counterfeiting The Rainbow by Beverly Rachel, and just to warn you, it is an hour and a half long.
Evangelical Christians think atheists and gays want to kill them. Gays, and maybe atheists (I'm not sure), think that Christians want to kill them--indeed, some do (and just because they're not "true Christians" doesn't mean they're not trying to kill us in the name of Christ).
So we have two groups who are afraid of each other. They can't show compassion to us and give us rights, because they're too scared. And we can't overlook what they're doing to us (out of fear), because it affects our lives. We have to take our rights that they won't give, which scares them even more. What a sad state of the world.
And ironically, anything I say to comfort my group--that their numbers are shrinking, especially among young people, for example--will only strike fear in the other group. So I will leave it at that. Fortunately for them, I have not heard talk of political revenge on my side. If we are vigilant and current trends keep up, I do think things will very slowly, over decades (two steps forward, one step back), get better and better for LGBT people. I believe we will have progress, if we vote, even if it's all-too-frustratingly slow and halting. And I don't think evangelicals will be in danger because of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment