J.K. Rowling: Dumbeldore is Gay

I think everybody who says Harry Potter is a bad influence is underestimating the people who read books. It's like after reading the Bible we would all start having sex with our father and stuff like that

People can tell the difference between a story and real life...

 Besides, who cares if he's gay or not?

I would not be surprised to hear that the fundamentalist Christian groups  use this as another reason to ban the Harry Potter  books. But then again, they  condemn the books as satan worship anyway.

Personally I find the whole thing in bad taste. Dumbledore's sexuality is entirely immaterial to anything that happens in the books, so why bring it up at all? Rowlings only mentioned it now because someone in the PR division of Warner decided that it would improve book sales.

There will always be some group that dislikes some recent piece of public news. Heck even Time ran a piece today on how the outing of Dumbeldore is actually bad for homosexuals because his homosexuality wasn't developed enough in the stories: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1674550,00.html

Someone will always find something to complain about. In my opinion the outing of Dumbeldore is less than noteworthy because it doesn't give us any information about his character that is truly enlightening. It doesn't suddenly explain something that was left unexplained in the books or otherwise enhance the reader's understanding of Rowling's work. In the end the outing of Dumbeldore looks more like politically correct pandering than anything truly interesting.

It's strange how the characters from the book got to have a life of their own out side of the book. I can't think of any referent to Dumbeldor's sex life anywhere in the 7 books. I guess when you read the last book you can see dumbeldore's friend as a romantic connection or not. Non of the teachers in Hogwarst is married (or maybe they are and it isn't mentioned) Dumbeldor maybe gay just like Professor Sprout might be into SM and Lockhart might collect coins as a hobby - if it's not in the books and it doesn't contribute anything to the plot - who cares?!

Personally, I think she was feeling unpolitically correct by NOT having a gay character in the book and trying to fix it now. If she's trying to gain the support of gay organizations by coming up with this, I think - too little too late. 

There are a couple of important books like "And Tango makes three" that built a reputation and got ban by the church because their main theme was gay people and alternative families, however, I think that a random mention in an interview about something that isn't really mentioned in the book would not get the book ban by more people.