That's right. If you're going to make a character gay, then make a character gay. I'm sure there were maybe a few among us who knew or suspected Dumbledore was gay, but I sure didn't and my gay-dar is pretty damned good, and if the gasps of shock from the Carnegie Hall crowd were any indication, pretty much nobody else picked it up either.

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not expecting DD to be a "fabulous" gay man ... but were we supposed to intuit that he was gay from his "midnight blue robes?" Perhaps they should have been rainbow colored. I mean, where were we supposed to get it from? He and the Grindlewald character were close friends -- was that the clue that he was gay? Because if the criteria for being gay is that he had a male friend, then that would make me gay, too. She's said all along that there were clues laid out for all of her major secrets, but then I'm going have to give Rowling a prize for making subtle an entirely new genre.

Ms. Rowling, there were no clues. I'm sorry. Clues that DD was gay weren't there. Rowling is a writer not afraid to explore dark themes, but I guess open homosexuality was too dark even for her.

I think it's wonderful that Rowling chose to make one of her characters gay. There are too few gay characters in literature in my opinion, but I think two of my friends both put it best when they said, "He's gay? And that's germane to the story how exactly?" If DD's being gay was his raison detre, or even the reason he took up with Grindlewald in the first place and the reason that things spiraled out of control, I would have liked that to have been made clear while I was reading the books. I would have liked something, anything that would have approximated a relationship that went beyond two men who were friends. It would have added such a deeper understanding of the nature of love and choices, which is what JKR had DD yammer on about for more than 40,000 pages. It also would have dovetailed nicely with other relationships and outcomes in the books.

It is understandable given the time Rowling places DD and Grindelwald's friendship that she would have closeted Dumbledore. He lived during a time when homosexuality wouldn't have been accepted. In fact, it was criminal. She makes allusions to the fact that it was during the '30s-'40s and thusly during the Nazi era. Homosexuals were rounded up and put to death along with every other "undesirable" under Hitler's plan. But that doesn't mean she couldn't have made his gayness apparent to us ... the readers. Maybe he could have been closeted to the rest of the wizarding world Rowling created, but not to us, the audience. We needed to know, but clearly she didn't want us to know until now.

I understand the sensitive nature of introducing sexuality of any kind in a children's book. It's a hot issue, it's divisive and controversial. Perhaps Rowling didn't think the DD's sexuality defined him, but then why bring it up at all?

So, I say it again, if you wanted him to be gay ... make him gay. Stand by it. Make him, if not proud, at least OUT on his own terms! Put it out there during, not after. It's easy to say he's gay NOW and respond to critics. You're books have already flown off the shelves and you live in a Scottish Fortress, so the critics and gay bashers who come at you with trebuchets of hate will never be able to hurt you. It's takes balls to say he's gay before the next book comes out.

If you wanted him to be gay, then this was a really chicken way to do it.