What Would Dumbledore Do?

So, if I discriminated against our doctors, our soldiers, our artists, our police, our teachers, our ministers, our rabbis, our neighbors, our sisters, our brothers, our parents, because they were all against gays, would that be right?

If you really read this post you will see that of course it wouldn’t be right to discriminate against those who discriminate against gays – and no one at the HP Alliance claimed that it would be. This post explores the belief that gay marriage should be allowed while explicitly stating that:

“their [anti-gay] beliefs around sexuality and marriage should be considered and explored, just as all ideas are worthy of exploration”

This post does not employ this particular belief but does not discredit others rights to have it.

I say they are right we should acknowledge and respect the right of others to have their own beliefs – even when we disagree with the belief itself. People certainly have every right to believe gay marriage is wrong – but as this post demonstrates we don’t need to agree with that person and can still maintain our own beliefs that prohibiting gay marriage is wrong

By doing so we are following Dumbledore’s message that “Every Idea is Worthy” (respect the right of others to have opinions) and maintaining the fact that “equality is essential”. (while respecting that right – politely maintaining our own beliefs)

I’m probably far older than most of the people on this site and I lived through the Civil Rights movement in America. I think that people are confusing legal rights with moral beliefs. One may believe that gay marriage (or inter-racial marriage) is wrong. That’s a personal moral belief and a person who holds that belief may chose to not marry someone of the same gender or someone of a different race. It’s a personal choice.

But a racial, or sexual orientation, majority does not have a moral right to legally impose their personal choice on other consenting adults. Changing the law doesn’t discriminate against anti-gays, they can continue to believe whatever they want. People can still choose to be racist, as well. They just can’t use the power of the state to enforce their racism. Does anyone doubt that Dumbledore would have sanction loving same sex relationships? Or opposed the desire of the Urbridges of the world to prohibit them? Delores had every right to not like the Muggle-born. But she had no right to use the power of the Ministry against them. Similarly, we have no right to use the power of our Ministries to limit the full potential of people just because they are born gay.

Wow. For one thing, according to Domestic Violence Shelter numbers and other reliable (non-biased) statistics from the APA and similar sources, 65-70% of homosexual relationships are abusive – either physically, sexually or psychologically. Condoning gay marriage is very much akin to condoning that abuse and saying that we have no right to judge what happens because of it. The majority of homosexuals have no desire for marriage beyond the desire to breakdown a moral tradition and to make a statement. Many of the homosexual rights activists that have given public interviews have even said that they’re biggest reason for fighting for gay marriage rights is simply because they want to share the health care and life insurance benefits that one member of the couple may have through their job and that it’s not fair that those rights are not extended to them. If this is your main reason for getting married (even if you’re among the evil, white, bigot heterosexuals), you have completely disgraced the sanctity of the tradition of marriage. Countless companies have compromised and extended family benefits to same sex partners of their employees. Those companies are mostly led by evil, white, bigot heterosexuals. If that is your main reason for wanting to be married, then take the benefits offered to you and move on. The real desire of most of the LGBT community is to publicly humiliate their family and friends because of their own narcissistic agendas. When a 20 year old boy refuses to come home and visit his parents (who have loved and supported him in every way despite their dislike for the lifestyle he’s chosen) unless he can “go to their church wearing a dress,” it is quite obvious that the love and support of his parents is meaningless if he can’t exploit and humiliate them in a very public way.

Members of the LGBT community are not oppressed in any way. They actually don’t even qualify to be labeled as a minority except by the basis of their numbers. Being fired or killed or attacked merely for being gay rarely happens – less than .17% of all crimes in the US are committed based on the perception of someone’s sexual orientation (based on FBI statistics). That it happens at all is reprehensible, however, it’s not nearly as common as the media would like you to believe. Statistically speaking, the average homosexual couple has a household income at least 25% HIGHER than the average heterosexual couple. The average homosexual person is 3 times as likely to have a college education and a white collar job than the average heterosexual person. Conversely, the average homosexual male (who is NOT considered promiscuous) will have 10 times as many sexual partners as the average heterosexual male who IS considered promiscuous. The biggest reason for male promiscuity – whether heterosexual or homosexual – is narcissism. Narcissism is just far more prevalent in the homosexual world (based on studies conducted by the APA).

Contrary to what many of you may have decided about me due to this post, I have many friends in the LGBT community. I love them dearly. You know what? Most of them agree with me. Most of them think the LGBT community leaders have gone way too far in their pursuit of TV air time and publicity. Most of them would prefer nothing more than to be loved by the people they care about and to quietly live their lives the way they’ve chosen to live. That’s all most people want. That is a right that is extended to them and everyone else in this nation.

This is totally true, as I have tried many times to explain to people. People are so freaked out about homosexuality, that they don’t reallise that their children or grandchildren could be gay. I love whoever wrote this peice. What’s “wrong” now WILL be right.

In response to “Not so easily led”’s post – Well, you know what they say about statistics – lies, damned lies, and more lies. Domestic abuse is common in heterosexual relationships too. The difference is how many women (generalising here, I know, but women tend to bear the brunt of domestic violence) – especially those brought up in societies that are strongly patriarchal – dare to step up or seek help. This is especially so in asian cultures where polygamy was until recently still widely accepted and women were regarded as property. Surely you’ve heard of indian women being burnt to death because their husbands were displeased, and chinese wives abandoned because they did not produce male children.

Although I do know some people from the LGBT community who are simply out to shock, I also know of some same-sex partnerships that are as lasting and loving as any heterosexual ones. I also know people who have tried to deny their own sexuality just to keep their parents happy, and people who love kids and the idea of family even though they are homosexual.

I’d say there are bad apples in every barrel. It’s not fair to say that homosexual relationships are ALWAYS more abusive/volatile/transient than heterosexual relationships. And given the kind of hostile pressure that homosexual relationships face, it’s no wonder that tensions can run a little high in these partnerships.

Why not just live and let live? They aren’t hurting you if they love each other, and goodness knows we could do with more love in the world.

I have a few bi and gay friends. They agree with me that this sort of homophobic nonsense is exactly like racism. It’s not their fault they want to have a loving relationship with the person of their choosing, sealing the deal with one of the biggest promises a person can make – a marriage oath. It’s what society and their families have raised them to see as good and right. Are we going to blast the Andromeda Blacks of our family? Or will we accept that they don’t want to marry a pureblood and would rather marry a Muggle-born?

“Curiosity is not a sin, Harry.” – Dumbledore (Order of the Phoenix)

So…I am 100% behind any effort to give homosexual unions complete and full equal status with heterosexual ones. My problem is with the word “marriage.” As a Roman Catholic Christian, my belief is that the Sacrament of Marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman, united in God.

While some of my Christian friends will disagree with me, I believe the best solution is to remove the term “marriage” from legalese and call all permanent relationships “civil unions”. As marriage is (in my opinion) a religious term, it could violate the separation of Church and State in the U.S. The only way to see a compromise is to allow heterosexuals be married in their churches, let homosexuals be married where certain churches allow it or united under law otherwise, and call all of the resulting partnerships THE SAME in legal-speak. No more “Separate but Equal”, we all know that doesn’t work (see Jim Crow laws).

I just don’t believe the equal term that should be used is “marriage” because of the special religious meaning it holds for me.

chrisStephenHP– I respect your opinion, and I think it’s reasonable, too, but I disagree with it. Yes, you’re right about separate not being equal. However, in my opinion, saying that gay people can have all EQUAL rights of straight people– but have to call their matrimony a union instead of a marriage, (have to use a SEPARATE term), is pretty much separate but equal. I think that a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, just like a woman and a man can be united in God. Also, do you think that atheists should not be able to get married, since it holds the special religious meaning that it does for you? Again, I completely and totally respect your opinion and I think it is a fully valid idea, I just disagree.

As for “Not So Easily Led”– no offense, but that whole post was bologna. You’re taking the wrongdoings of a few of the LGBT community and pretending that it applies to them all. And with that stupid assertion that most homosexual relationships are abusive… seriously? you aimed a little bit too high with that one for it to be credible. And a lot of homosexual relationships are a little bit abusive, the only thing is that the abuse comes mainly from people not in the relationship! “The majority of homosexuals have no desire for marriage beyond the desire to breakdown a moral tradition and to make a statement.”– again, bologna. You don’t even have a fake statistic to go with this one. Maybe some homosexual couples do simply want to do this, but a good majority simply want to have the same rights extended to them as to heterosexual couples, and to be able to enjoy marriage the same way that everybody else gets to. For one thing, it’s not fair. And don’t you dare respond by saying “Life isn’t fair”, because, while that’s true, it shouldn’t be. Enabling unfairness is repulsive. you also say, “Countless companies have compromised and extended family benefits to same sex partners of their employees.” Yes, maybe that’s true, but countless HAVEN’T, too. “They actually don’t even qualify to be labeled as a minority except by the basis of their numbers.” Well aren’t you a little Einstein! Get out that dictionary and look up the word “minority!” “Being fired or killed or attacked merely for being gay rarely happens – less than .17% of all crimes in the US are committed based on the perception of someone’s sexual orientation (based on FBI statistics).” There is no way that this is a valid statistic. Oftentimes, you can’t prove a person’s motivation behind a firing– the employer can just say that the person in question had a bad attitude, or lower productivity, or whatever they darn well please! The perpetrator of the crime can say that the victim was just mean, or ugly, or again, whatever they want to say. And a lot of criminals are never caught, too. Let’s see… we’ll skip past yet another bogus statistic to…, “Most of them would prefer nothing more than to be loved by the people they care about and to quietly live their lives the way they’ve chosen to live. That’s all most people want. That is a right that is extended to them and everyone else in this nation.” You know what? A lot of them CAN’T live their lives the way they’ve chosen to and the way they’d like to, because can’t get married!!!!

I like Jen’s opinion. It struck gold for me. So hard.

But yeah, the path for freedom of homosexuals in regards to marriage, is like Carol Gundlach said. But at the same time, I think you should shoot down legal discrimination before moving onto shooting down social discrimination. It’s nice to have something on your side.

As to comparing it to racism, I don’t know. People discriminate, to be sure, but its no way near as deep-rooted. It’s something people don’t have to show. By no means I’m saying it’s alright to not accept gay’s rights to marry, but I’m saying I personally don’t know the means to achieve a socially non-discriminate society. And no one seems to really discuss that.

@ChristtevenHP – I have heard from various religious people that their main disagreement is with the term “marriage” itself. One side of all of this that is rarely discussed is why is government involved in marriage in the first place? If marriage is religious, it shouldn’t be there anyway. OR if it is there, it shouldn’t be religious.

So why not give EVERYONE, heterosexual and homosexual, a legal recognition of a civil union, with all the same rights and privileges that currently exist. And then marriage can be spoken however people want to speak of it as a common term that has no legal recognition. The result would be the same, all relationships are equal, and everyone is calling their relationship a marriage in their own lives if they want to.

…but somehow I think many would still object. Some people (and certainly not all!) use the whole semantics/religiousness of “marriage” as a socially acceptable scapegoat. It is part of the way we express prejudice these days (called modern racism in psychology). That’s why this solution isn’t likely to work. It “takes away” something from the heterosexual relationships (even though it actually doesn’t). So calling it marriage right now seems to be the best option, with religious institutions deciding for themselves whether to perform marriage ceremonies or not.

Oh man! I’m not going to get into this stuff in detail cos I’m not that well spoken, but here goes: We are all equal. We are suposed to share the same rights. Marriage is one of those rights (regardless of how you class it- legal or religious etc). A person should be able to marry another person. That’s what marriage is, right? Two people together forever? (I’m a dreamer ) So let the law be passed, to un-discrimate. Then, sure, if your religion or section of your religion isn’t fore it, fine. That’s a personal thing, ya know. Let them object. They don’t HAVE to marry you. I honestly don’t understand why love is so complicated when it’s so simple.

Hi…first off, “Not So Easily Led,” you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, and that’s fine. I’m concerned, though, that the basis for your arguments might be slightly off.

I’d like to clarify your statistics. Were the domestic violence numbers taken from those living in shelters? If so, then all that means is 65-70% of people in shelters are LGBT. So it could mean that LGBT people – perhaps due to a lack of shame because of the openness required to come out, or a heightened sense of self-awareness that comes from recognizing one’s own sexuality – are just more likely to seek help than heterosexuals. Or another explanation, if the statistics come from a sampling of all couples, abused or nonabused, could be that gay people, within the first few years of coming out, are shell-shocked, battle-scarred, whatever you want to call it, and it has nothing to do with the nature of LGBT relationships, just the psychological condition of young gay people. Statistics are never meant to infer causality, and you have to be careful how you interpret them without having further information to back them up.

Also, when did the APA release the study on homosexuality and narcissism? Again, all of the above reasoning applies in that these statistics may not infer something evil about homosexuality, perhaps a coping mechanism, perhaps something directly related to a heightened sense of self-awareness, who knows. It could be that the study is skewed because of the way narcissism was determined. And as well, the APA’s bible, the DSM, until its most recent edition, the DSM-IV, labeled homosexuality a mental condition much like sociopathy or multiple personality disorder. They rescinded it in recent years, so it depends on when the study was done, whether it was blind (the subjects did not know which group or condition they were sorted into) double-blind (the subjects nor the observers – the people giving the test – didn’t know which group or condition they were sorted into), and whether the group was compared to the average population (ie, if the majority of LGBT people classify as narcissistic, where does that fall, and what number of standard deviations did that fall outside the norm for the heterosexual population?).

Also, if your friends know your viewpoint, I’d be careful to use them as a representation of the average LGBT community member. I have many LGBT friends as well, and again, while they aren’t representative of the LGBT community, most of them who do want equal rights don’t associate with those who feel they don’t deserve those rights. So I would imagine most of the LGBT people who associate with someone who disagrees with their right to marry also have doubts about their right to marry or are reluctant to speak up. Again, I don’t know your friends, so I don’t want to accuse them of things that aren’t true, and I don’t want to assume my friends are representative of the LGBT community as a whole, but it stands to reason that if someone you know disagrees with your right to do something that you see as a basic human right, that’s sort of a friendship deal-breaker.

And lastly, as far as the legalities of marriage go, I know that some of what LGBT couples are fighting for is most definitely the monetary advantages – I don’t know that most of them need any one of us to approve of them as a legitimately married couple because many of the long-term couples I know already consider themselves married and don’t care what the law says. That doesn’t cheapen the relationship, it just means they want all the same rights as heterosexual couples because the love is obviously there. But the other legalities include power of attorney and next of kin rights. They want the same right to consider their spouse legally family as heterosexual couples do. Here’s the thing: my boyfriend and I are both atheists. Neither one of us needs to be married in a church to feel our relationship is legitimate. But eventually, I anticipate getting married to him because I’ll want him, more than my parents, to be able to decide to take me off life support if that decision needs to be made, he will make the decisions about long-term care should I ever need it, and I want him to make the decision for me that I’ll be cremated and the ashes spread as I choose them to be because I don’t know that my parents, or my brother if they’re no longer around, would make the right decision, and I trust him with that. I’m atheist, and I can do that because I was lucky enough to win the genetic lottery and fall in love with someone with a mixed-match set of reproductive organs. But at this point, my best friend can’t. If he falls ill, it won’t matter how much he loves his boyfriend, how long they’ve been together, or how much of a life they’ve built together, because his parents will legally make the decisions. I’m sure many of you know what I’m saying when I say that, while well-meaning, most of our biological families understand far less about what we want in the sort of situation where life and death are decided and the ability to decide is taken from us. And yes, technically that’s a legal decision, and one that the LGBT equal rights movement centers around, one that people seem to think cheapens the marriage debate, but for me, that’s the core of what marriage is about. That person you choose to share your life with becomes family, and that does and should include legal decisions.

Dumbledorelives | July 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am
“So, if I discriminated against our doctors, our soldiers, our artists, our police, our teachers, our ministers, our rabbis, our neighbors, our sisters, our brothers, our parents, because they were all against gays, would that be right?”

No, that would not be right. The whole point is to end the cycle of discrimination, not to continue it.

I haven’t yet read any of the comments, but before I do, I’d just like to say that this is the most inspiring and kind thing I’ve ever read about homosexuality. I’m 16 years old and gay and have been out since I was 14. You’ve really hit the nail on the head in describing what it’s like. I don’t think people like to show their “weaknesses” but there is definitely a sense of isolation, a sense of fear, and I applaud you for realizing the courage it takes to transcend these circumstances.

Bravo. That’s all I can say.

I hate to break it to you, Not-So-Easily-Led, but if you think the “sanctity of marriage” was historically based on love, you need to do a bit of historical fact-checking. First of all, the idea of people marrying for love is relatively knew; in feudal times and almost every other period in history, marriages were arranged based on money and social status. (Does the term “dowry” ring a bell?) So to suggest that wanting health care and other basic rights goes against the tradition of marriage is downright asinine.

Second of all, you write:
“65-70% of homosexual relationships are abusive – either physically, sexually or psychologically. Condoning gay marriage is very much akin to condoning that abuse and saying that we have no right to judge what happens because of it. The majority of homosexuals have no desire for marriage beyond the desire to breakdown a moral tradition and to make a statement. ”

First of all, I typed in your statistic into google, and the first thing that came up was this blog. Do you mind providing me with a link to this information? There is in fact very little evidence to suggest violence in homosexual relationships.

Also, I really loved the quote “the majority of homosexuals have no desire for marriage . . .”
Since when does any person have AN INKLING of an idea about the desires of an entire group. This statement is just as absurd as my assuming that “all white people want to be rich and oppress others.” I, for one, am gay and have many friends that plan to marry BECAUSE THEY WANT TO. Because marriage, as of now, is the strongest symbol of a relationship that exists. Excuse my anger, but how dare you imply that we only want marriage for personal gain.

Your opinion reminds me of a frightening one held by Ann Coulter: I thought gays just wanted to get married to one another and settle down in the suburbs so they could visit each other in the hospital.”

Is this what you think?

I have sympathy with religious people who find the term ‘marriage’ difficult because it means something so specific to their faith (union of one man and one woman, etc.) However, this term was around before the Christian faith coined its use in this form, simpy to mean ‘joining’, and it has now so fully permeated our culture that to request a different term will disturb equality. Furthermore, an atheist man and woman joined in matrimony would still receive a marriage certificate.

In summary, I sympathise with your difficulty in this issue, but do not think it can reasonably be used to deny the rights of a significant proportion of the world’s population.