Albus Dumbledore is Gay!

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, told a crowd at Carnegie Hall yesterday that the reason why the super-wizard and beloved Headmaster of Hogwarts Albus Dumbledore never found a true love was that he was gay!  Secretly smitten by the dark wizard and contemporary, Gellert Grindelwald, Albus never found joy in the comfort of women.  Some fans have wondered what might be the deal with Dumbledore because he never had a girlfriend (though I just assumed that he and Professor McGonagall had a thing going on, but admittedly my “gay-dar” is horrible) and he had a mysterious and troubled past (but so could straight people, right?).

Rowling admits that a major theme in all her books is tolerance: notice how He Who Must Not Be Named hates mudbloods (wizards with non-wizard, or muggle, parents), Slytherin House also only takes pure bloods, Hermione (Harry’s brilliant friend) has muggle parents, Ron’s father loves muggles and gets flack for it at work,  Harry’s mom was a mudblood, and all that stuff. 

So, I guess having a major and beloved character be gay is another way for her to promote diversity and tolerance of others.  I did appreciate, however, that it did not become a major point in the books like, “Hi Harry, I’m your Headmaster and I like to have sex with men.”  I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell, and like many homosexuals in America feel:  being defined by how you choose to have sex is not as important as everything else you are about.  Of course, the Christian groups that have already despised the pagan motif of a wizarding world being targeted at a child audience are going to have yet another reason to take antacids after this new revelation.

Pic from a Spanish dictionary of some kind… just follow the link.