There are certain things you can count on: the rising of the sun, the ebbing of the tides and JK Rowling finding new and bizarre ways to double down on her bigotry while painting herself as a victim.
Her latest defense is truly a head-scratcher.
Last week, Rowling likened the accusations of transphobia against her to the founding story of Mormonism in a tweet that made very little sense, unless she was trying to backhandedly drag herself.
You can see her tweet here:
In her tweet, Rowling included a screenshot of a tweet in which a person expressed frustration that whenever someone points out Rowling's transphobia, they are asked to conjure up specific examples as proof.
Rowling then sniped about this person's frustration:
“It’s like when Joseph Smith found the golden plates and nobody else was allowed to look at them.”
Rowling's tweet was presumably in reference to the origin story of Mormonism and its holy book, The Book of Mormon.
In 1823 at the age of 18, founder Joseph Smith claimed he was visited by an angel named Moroni who told him the secret location of a set of golden tablets on which were inscribed the supposed truths Smith translated from an ancient form of Egyptian into The Book of Mormon.
But, Smith claimed, he was told he was expressly forbidden from showing the tablets to anyone else and he was commanded to return them to Moroni after translating them.
Smith did obtain statements from 11 others who claimed they too saw the tablets, though there is debate over whether this was a metaphysical or literal experience.
So ultimately followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints must simply take Smith's word for it his translation is the actual truth—polygamy, racism, homophobia and all.
Rowling is using this story to claim her detractors are doing the same thing Smith did—insisting people simply take their word for it when it comes to her transphobia, without offering evidence.
The difference is there's an entire internet documenting Rowling's comments, examples of her racism, homophobia and transphobia as well as an entire medical and scientific community of experts who say many of her views are flat-out incorrect.
All while she continues insisting she knows the truth and is being silenced for telling it on public forums. So maybe there is a comparison here with Joseph Smith, just not the one she thinks she's drawing.
As you might expect, Rowling's tweet did not go over very well.
In the end, Rowling ended up doing her own research on Mormonism, unlike her racist stereotype representations of BIPOC.
Rowling found out she didn't have all of her facts straight on the "golden plates" origin story.
If only she'd be willing to do this with her bigoted views on marginalized people.
