Not really. A bulletproof vest won’t protect your head. Meanwhile they’re standing directly on the other side of a door that they’re shooting through, while the home owner could have been anywhere on the other side of the door. They’re playing a guessing game, but the homeowner can just shoot the door at head-height and their bulletproof vests will mean nothing.
That’s a weird spelling of “hate-crime”.
I would never call someone a bigot for talking about Harry Potter. It does absolutely reduce my opinion of them, though. I keep it to myself, but I see it as pretty thoughtless.
Honestly, having to listen to people babble about Harry Potter just feels like a slap in the face. Like, I know people who have the best intentions in regard to supporting trans people, but they’ll still happily make endless references to this garbage in front of me as though it wouldn’t immediately bring to mind someone who is actively engaged in trying to get others to agree that I shouldn’t exist. Some of them also buy merch that I guarantee puts money directly in her pocket.
It bothers the shit out of me.
The upside to all of this right-wing censorship is that every time they do it they sell a bit of their claim to being subversive rebels pushing against a stodgy set of norms around speech and independence. Which, like, is a large part of what they’ve built their base on.
We’re quickly getting back to that 90s era status quo of the right being whining church groups who don’t want to see anyone gay on TV or hear anyone say things that they don’t like politically. The result being that the left gets to look cool and subversive again, which swings the pendulum toward our side.
The biggest strategic mistake we ever made on the left was coming off as scolding moral purists. This is an opportunity to walk that back, and to reframe the push for our rights as rebellion. “I don’t care what you think, I’m doing what I want” is a much stronger position than “let me tell you why what you say and do is immoral”.