I just can’t tell you how delighted I was to read this morning that J.K. Rowling told the world yesterday that the most beloved elder in Christendom (and I use that phrase deliberately) Albus Dumbledore is gay.
Wow, who would have thought… generations of children mentored by a homosexual grow up to, oh, you know, get married and have children who save the world. OK, some of those kids turned out to be Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy (two generations each) but you can’t have everything.
Some people have already expressed their dismay that she didn’t tell us about this from the very first opportunity. Sadly, in this day and age, she couldn’t have carried it off any other way.
The only way to protect herself from the inevitable firestorm was to wait till the series was finished and millions of people had already read it and loved every word. Because if the gay-haters knew about Dumbledore one second sooner, they not only would have started burning books immediately but the controversy would have insured that millions of people would never have laid hands on a Harry Potter book, much less read it.
This way, people who would otherwise have backed away in absolute horror at the very idea of a gay person being a major, beloved character who helps the hero save the world, read Dumbledore’s story–and liked him.
And now, if they have even two brain cells to rub together, they’re going to have to deal with the fact that gay characters don’t cause them any personal harm whatsoever.
It might just be the start of something good. Oh, once we get past the brimstone and bonfires, that is. Guaranteed, the Dark rhetoric starts spewing from pulpits tomorrow.
