Jesus Loves Gay Dumbledore

So the news came out that J. K. Rowling always thought of Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as being gay. OK, to all of my fellow Christian friends, take a deep breath.

First, if you are the sort of fundamentalist drone that hates gay people, then you are also the sort of person who wouldn't look past the word "witchcraft" in the sentence above, therefore you already hate Harry Potter. Paint your protest signs and have at it. People like you always need a witch to burn. Frankly, you should thank Ms. Rowling for making it so easy for you.

If, on the other hand, you do not innately hate gay people, seeing them instead as Jesus did-- as people worth loving, despite the sinful nature that plagues the rest of the world-- then let me ask a rather revolutionary question: Does it matter if Dumbledore was gay?

Let me address some of the knee-jerk responses that popped up in my own head.

Response 1: WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN? There is a hysterical, prissy little part in a lot of us Christians, methinks. It represents all those fussy Sunday school teachers and churched old ladies that many of us grew up with. It is their collective voice that speaks up in our subconscious whenever we find ourselves laughing uncomfortably at a joke on Family Guy or sneaking a peek at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. It is the voice of guilt and fretting and manners and propriety. This is the voice that, when presented with something like homosexuality, or drinking alcohol, or cuss words, immediately and stridently calls out "Shame On You!". In the case of a gay Dumbledore, the old lady voice demands that we protect the children, who are, let's be honest, Harry Potter's prime market.

OK. Fine. But what, exactly, are we protecting them from? I've read all the books more than once and never guessed that Dumbledore was gay. If we needed the author to point it out to us, how can it be an active part of the book? And if it isn't part of the book, how are the "Children" at risk? I mean, if Dumbledore was seen to be checking out Harry's butt at any point, or caught with a stack of child porn in his desk, then we'd have a problem. And if any of that happened in the books, I (thankfully!) missed it. My kids will read the Harry Potter books someday, and unless someone makes a big deal out of it (like my fundamentalist friends) they'll never guess that, in the author's imagination and nowhere else, Dumbledore might be gay. So in this case, I feel OK patting the little old lady in my conscience on the hand and telling her to go knit a doily.

Response 2: SHE'S PROMOTING GAY PEOPLE! OK, maybe. So? Are we to think that, because Ms. Rowling thought of Dumbledore as gay, she is trying to indoctrinate the minds of the world's youth with homosexual cravings? If this is so, she did a pretty horrid job of it, considering that, as I mentioned above, none of us, after reading her books, had even the most remote idea of Dumbledore's apparent sexual preference. If she was trying to make a preachy point about gay tolerance, I might suggest she was being a little overly subtle about it. If her gay theme had been as prevalent and obvious as, oh, say, her Christian themes, then we might have had a problem. Still, just for the sake of argument, what if she had made it obvious in the story?

Hmm?

Do we Christians hate gay people? Some of you do, and you are the ones who, like I already mentioned, are already calling J. K. Rowling a witch and burning her books (probably because you can't burn the actual witch anymore.) But Jesus doesn't hate gay people. The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. But so is gluttony. And so is lying. And so is thinking sexy thoughts about the cute wife next door. A whole whopping lot of us Christian types commit those sins everyday, like it or not. Jesus loves us, though, doesn't he? Yes, he does. But not those gay people? If we believe that, then we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. If we are going to condemn J. K. Rowling for merely thinking that Dumbledore might be gay, then we are admitting that we think homosexuality, even in thought only, is a special kind of sin deserving of a special kind of hatred. If we go down that road, I think we can be pretty sure that Jesus doesn't go with us.

Do we not believe that a gay man could be as wise as Dumbledore? Or as generally good? All the best people in the history of the world have been sinners. Some have committed sins a whole gigantic, whopping lot worse than having homosexual leanings. Some guy named David killed a man so he could steal his wife. God called that same guy a man after his own heart. If David had lusted after another dude, though, instead of the lovely Bathsheba, then what? Do we think God would've said, "Now you've gone too far, Dave. You could've just committed murder over a babe, but you had to go and look at that dude's butt. You disgust me."

I mean, really.

Response 3: IT'S A MEDIA STUNT! Maybe, but come on, that's not a sin, really, is it? And honestly, I don't think that's what it is. Ms. Rowling seems to be very true to her characters and her stories, and Harry Potter has already made her more money than Gringott's, so what'd be the point? As a writer, I know how characters can become their own. You don't control them, entirely, at least if you want to be true to them. If you want to write them as real characters, then you have to let them be different than you. Ms. Rowling once said that it wasn't until she was half way through her first Harry Potter book that she realized she was writing fantasy. She says she just suddenly noticed that there were unicorns in her book and said to herself, "this is a fantasy story!" She admitted that she, herself, wasn't even much of a fan of fantasy stories. That's how stories go, however. I am a firm believer that the best writer is the one who offers as little interference as possible; the best author let's the story write itself. I am willing to bet that Ms. Rowling didn't intend to make Dumbledore gay any more than she intended to write a fantasy story. I am willing to bet that somewhere along the line, as she allowed Dumbledore to be his own character, she just noticed it. Hmm. Dumbledore's gay. How about that? Didn't see that one coming.

Either way, what does it matter? Would we kick a gay person out of our church? Or would we love on them just like we'd love on anyone, regardless of the sins that they struggle with? I hope the latter. And if so, what do we do with a gay Dumbledore? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

If we want to be known as the kind of people who love, just like Jesus loves, then let's at least start with fictional characters. Treat it as practice for the real thing.