If I asked who Harry Potter was, I’ll probably be pummeled to death by 14-year-old girls with Mattel toys sporting lead-based paint. It has become common knowledge due to the success of the widely popular ‘Harry Potter’ books that Harry Potter is a young wizard who attends a school of magic called Hogwarts and also has a lightning scar on his forehead (thank you, Wikipedia).

However, something you might not have known about one of the books’ main characters was revealed last Friday by J.K. ‘I’m rich, bitch’ Rowling.

‘My truthful answer to you ‘ I always thought of Dumbledore as gay,’ replied the highest-earning author in history at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Her response was to a question about whether Dumbledore ever found love himself by one of the 1,600 in attendance. That was a good question, but I have an even better one. Why would a 19-year-old from Colorado ask about Dumbledore’s love life? (Or possibly, more important, where’s Colorado?)

Is anyone really surprised? Gay subliminal messages are not hard to find in the ‘Harry Potter’ series, especially the bit about boys with wands. Many of its characters have been speculated to be on the other side of the rainbow by fans, including Harry Potter himself.

So Dumbledore is gay. Quite frankly, I’m not surprised. I mean, a lonely old guy who invites young boys on ‘journeys’ and is loved by everyone? He’s like the Michael Jackson of the Wizarding World.

Soon, Harry will accuse Dumbledore of giving him wine and making him watch witch porn (excellent stuff, by the way). Then Dumbledore will show up to the Wizengamot Court in his pajamas, dancing on top of a broom.

Excuse me if I failed to see the significance of Dumbledore’s sexual orientation in relation to anything in the books. It’s quite amazing how a single fact can change the public image of a person, even a fictional character. Although the audience at Carnegie Hall responded to the news with warm applause, others may not be so tolerant. Let’s not forget those overprotective parents who deem anything not ‘Veggie Tales’ as unholy.

You know those religious freaks who have been running around for years trying to get Harry Potter banned because it somehow glorified witchcraft and, therefore, Satan? Now they have a new ‘weapon’ to add to their arsenal of nonsense in a form of a fictional old gay guy in a robe.

In their views, Dumbledore is not just a Satan worshiper, he’s now a gay Satan worshiper, which probably makes him twice as devilish and fashionable. I predict protest marches with picket signs reading ‘Godless Sodomites’ outside movie theaters of the next ‘Harry Potter’ movie.

I find it very disappointing that our society is still dependent on trivial and useless information to describe and identify someone. Now Dumbledore will no longer be remembered as the benevolent headmaster of Hogwarts, but that gay dude from ‘Harry Potter.’ To automatically identify someone with their sexual orientation is something the public has become fixated on and has become a weakness of our community. From New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey’s resignation because of his sexual activities in a rest stop bathroom to the popular belief that Tom Cruise is still gay even though he’s married with a kid, sexual orientation has taken priority over everything a person stands for.

Whether being homo or hetero is your preference, it is important to remember that it should not be used to identify you. However, I have heard that Angelina Jolie is bisexual and I just want to say ‘ that’s totally awesome.