Put a smile on my face. Combine that with the hilarious dancing anti-protestor Mexican Guy, and this week is shaping up rather nicely. Thank you BB!
Correction: An earlier version of this posting described J.K. Rowling as the author of the “Happy Potter” books. The character’s name is actually “Harry Potter”. Boing Boing does not regret the error.
WBC now consists of something around five sister-cousin-brother-husbands.
Responding to them and giving them this platform is akin to tweeting/blogging about a lunatic across the street who is yelling out their window about nothing with nobody listening (OK, that’s twitter in a nutshell).
I agree that bigotry should be challenged, but these folks are nobodies who’ve been dumped by much of their own family, including ones who used to be on board with the hate. Let’s find other bigots to challenge, as in the ones with hundreds of thousands of millions of voices.
When even the right-wing lunatics agree that these seven or so folks are right-wing lunatics, I think we can all ignore them.
One question keeps popping up in my mind: do the members of the WBC think Gandalf and Dumbledore are real people?
It keeps popping up because of the very strong possibility that the answer is yes. Just to underscore the point here’s a picture of how I imagine Panti Bliss would respond to that question.
What, the platform of being mocked by Rowling? The only thing they got out of this was their name mentioned, and unless you already care about that name, it looks completely interchangeable with every other bigot on twitter. Most of whom are also unimportant as individuals, yet have an effect in aggregate.
Just because nobody listens to the yelling doesn’t mean nobody hears it, that it can’t wear on vulnerable people. Rowling is right: challenging it is a nice gesture that can help with that. That seems far more real and important to me than whatever you’re imagining the WBC got out of this.
Bigger (jesus) fish to fry.
Maybe the WBC should start picketing seafood restaurants on Sundays, for both serving shellfish and working on the sabbath. Afterward they should condemn themselves for picketing on said clearly delineated sacred time described by their holy text.
I disagree with making this about which organizations are best to care about; we should be concerned with the bigotry itself, wherever we see it. If you insist on only challenging the biggest fish, you are going to leave swarms of little ones harassing whoever they want.
When WBC shows up on my lawn (they literally have), then they warrant a reaction.
Otherwise, bigger* (jesus) fish to fry.
*“Bigger” means “bigger,” not “biggest”; it does, however, exclude plankton.
(Three posts on a topic, I’m out. DM for further info.)
Their “1 MAN 1 WOMAN 4 LIFE” sign has reminded me, has anyone ever seen WBC protest against divorce laws, or picket divorce counselling services? HMMMMM…
I was wondering that too. And I really think they do think they’re really people. Which makes this even better.
And just to add to the delicious irony, I think they don’t understand that those two fictional person’s are most famously portrayed by the same actor.
They were?
Ian McKellen, Richard Harris and Michael Gambon, surely?
(I haven’t seen the HP films, admittedly…)
You must be thinking of Gandalf/Magneto slash fiction.
I still don’t follow. Where are you getting the idea that Ian McKellen ever played Dumbledore?
Old British actors, they are all the same. Just like the Doctor.
Color me stupid and confused and embarrassed.
I will now dine on a copious quantity of crow.
There is some consolation to me in my confidence that Gandalf and Dumbledore were both fictional persons, no matter how much I would like to meet them.
Additional mitigation: I have seen only a couple of the HP movies, so my incorrect assertion was based on faulty memory and a desire for the narrative of this thread to be as humiliating as possible to WBC.
hangs head in shame and shuffles out of the thread
That’s why I get so confused watching Game of Thrones.
“Hey, didn’t that old grizzled guy get killed like six times already?”
