Monday, October 22, 2007

Just a Harmless Kids' Book

J.K. Rowling, author of the very popular and successful Harry Potter series of books, announced Friday that master wizard Albus Dumbledore, a prominent character in the series, is gay, FoxNews.com reports in this article.

Many people will shrug their shoulders and say, "Why is this even news?" Many more will say, "It's just a harmless kids' book. We're talking about a fictional character here!" Indeed, if some far-right extremist fundamentalist Christian would dare to mention it, he or she would be accused of making mountains out of molehills, looking for fights to pick.

But those homophobes are too late. Those comfortable with promotion of homosexual behaviour beat them to the mountain-making. In case we were naive enough to think that this is an inconsequential fictional event, they make it quite clear:

"Jo Rowling calling any Harry Potter character gay would make wonderful strides in tolerance toward homosexuality," Melissa Anelli, Webmaster of the fan site http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, told The Associated Press. "By dubbing someone so respected, so talented and so kind, as someone who just happens to be also homosexual, she's reinforcing the idea that a person's gayness is not something of which they should be ashamed."
The fact that these advances of the homosexual agenda are taking place in a book for children don't make them insignificant; they are by that fact the more insidious. I can not comment on Rowling's motivation, but it certainly can't hurt to have this influential lobby line up behind her new book.