[HPforGrownups] Re: A Gay Potter Character?/I'm so happy

[Lee Kaiwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 178239

[Magpie: I've removed my comments vis-a-vis homosexuality to a private 
e-mail since I think they're pretty much off-topic here]

LCJ:
> Whatever your personal views on homosexuality, the fact remains that
> it IS a controversial subject in most parts of the world.

Magpie:
> We're having a discussion, but JKR isn't part of it defending
> anything. 

Because she's not a member of this list.

> She just said Dumbledore was gay and went on her merry way.

She was able to "go on her merry way" because she made the statement in 
a relatively limited forum and few people are aware of her comments. If 
she had made DD explicitly homosexual in the pages of the canon, it 
WOULD have generated a great deal of controversy, and she would have 
been forced to defend her decision.

> it does still kind of surprise me that she'd be put off including 
 > a gay character because she feared defending it.

If not her, then the publisher, who WOULD fear losing book sales.

> I'm just saying that including a gay character in a book is a 
 > pretty common thing nowadays,

I admit I'm not intimately familiar with the modern state of children's 
literature, but I'd be surprised if homosexual characters are "common" 
occurence in children's books. That's not to say there are *no* 
children's books with homosexual characters, but I doubt they represent 
(percentage-wise) a major segment of the market.

Sorry, my daughter is begging to go out and play, so I don't have time 
to address the rest of your excellent points.

--CJ