Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A Bigger Issue Than Tinky-Winky

I was hoping to see this get a little more traction among the right-wing blogosphere: J.K. Rowling, enemy of social conservatives and the demon authoress behind the Harry Potter books, revealed that revered wizard and headmaster Dumbledore was gay. She also said her favorite animal is an otter, because "I'm a bit anti-cat."

Where is the outrage? Not over the cat thing; I think we can all get behind that. But when Jerry Falwell suggested that one of the Teletubbies might be gay; the blogosphere was alight in a rainbow-hued controversy. I'm casting about on Google's blogsearch right now and 6 pages deep there is still no "won't somebody please think of the children?" commentary. It's all "I should have known" and "how cuckoo is that" and one "no he's not," but concern over a beloved teacher figure actually having a thing for the beefcake isn't an issue, it seems.

What's up? Are social conservatives simply worn out from attacking the pagan aspects of Harry Potter and too tired to attack it on sexual morality grounds? Do they realize, for a change, what a non-issue this is? After all the guy is not only fictional, but he's at least 600 years old and therefore sexuality is for him little more than a pleasant memory. Or did they perhaps learn something from the Tinky-Winky backlash?

I can't help but think that Falwell, the heterosexual American Dumbledore, would have taken a crack at this one. God help me, I miss him.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, it's weird. My first thought is that Rowling really shot herself in the foot with this remark. It might not raise an eyebrow in the UK or Europe, but in terms of selling books to kids in the far more religious American market, I thought the book-burnings were what started all the wildfires down in SoCal.

    MAybe it's becasue the last book has been published. Or the news cycle hasn't digested it yet.

    Aperopos the fires: Every OK in your part of the Valley?

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  2. See the next post for reassuring fire news.

    ReplyDelete