Dumbledore is Gay: Hogwarts' Headmaster is Coming Out

According to J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, the most famous headmaster in the world-Albus Dumbledore-is gay. This news came to a shocked crowd in Carnegie Hall on Friday night. Apparently, Rowling was questioned about Dumbledore's experience with love, and much to the audience's surprise, Rowling responded with the love story of Albus Dumbledore and Gilert Grindenwald (the dark wizard Dumbledore defeated many years prior to Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts). After reading all of the books in the series, this makes sense, but it is not something that is overtly obvious to the reader.

But what do we do with this information? As both a Christian and an avid Harry Potter fan (NO-it's not an oxymoron), I find the news interesting and completely inconsequential. It does not matter to me that Dumbledore was gay, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will matter to many others in the Christian community. As many already know, there was a serious uproar at the release of the first Harry Potter book, and it wasn't because children were actually enjoying reading for a change. Many felt that the book (and all those following it) was going to corrupt the young people who read it and lead them into a life of witchcraft and paganism. There are certainly people out there who will try to pervert the relationship of Dumbledore and leading character Harry Potter. Such people will try to pervert anything simply because it's in their nature to do so. There are also people out there who will immediately try to justify their "I've always said those books were evil" attitudes with this information. I doubt seriously that the people who still maintain these idiotic ideas have ever actually read one of Rowling's books, but they are still entitled to their opinions.

As a Christian, however, I believe that these books do nothing more than promote many of the aspects that my faith holds most dear-charity, forgiveness, sacrifice. And the fact that one of the characters has been "outed" as a homosexual does not in any way diminish the ideals that the books promote. I do not agree with homosexuality, but I'm certainly not going to stop reading the books or advise anyone else not to just because a character is gay. Even if Dumbledore showed up to the Halloween feast in drag, I would still be a fan.