On Friday, British author J.K. Rowling revealed for the first time that Albus Dumbledore, one of the central heroes in the record-breaking Harry Potter series, is in fact a gay man. Asked if Dumbledore, “who believed in the prevailing power of love,” had ever fallen “in love himself,” Rowling said that he once had with another male wizard.

While Rowling considers her novels to be a “prolonged argument for tolerance” and most fans were “thrilled with the announcement,” some conservative blogs are criticizing the revelation:

- Psycheout at Blogs 4 Brownback called it “revolting,” saying “Dumbledore is a gay homosexual who doesn’t deserve to live on G-d’s green earth.”

- At Redstate, dvdmsr says the revelation means that “Dumbledore was more flawed than I thought.”

- Don Surber wondered why the audience would “applaud” the revelation and suggested that Rowling was “knock[ing] the Christians” to “sell books.”

One prominent conservative blog, Newsbusters, is claiming that the revelation somehow vindicates the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was showered with ridicule in 1999 after declaring that one of the Teletubbies, Tinky Winky, was gay. Mark Finkelstein, a Republican official in upstate New York, writes that “somewhere, Jerry Falwell is smiling” about the news:

What’s that? It now turns out that Dumbledore is gay? That guy who was the headmaster at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts? Author J.K. Rowling said so herself? [...]

And while Falwell was thoroughly lambasted in the MSM for his suggestion, the Times tells us that Rowlings’s revelation inspired “applause.”

Somewhere, Jerry Falwell is smiling.

First, Harry Potter and the Teletubbies are completely unrelated. The sexual orientation of a character in one fictional world cannot vindicate claims about the sexual orientation of a separate character in a separate fictional world.

Even if Finkelstein’s larger point is that Falwell was right that some children’s entertainment include “undisclosed gay characters,” Falwell was wrong in his claim that the presence of a gay character is “damaging to the moral lives of children.” As Jacob Weisberg wrote in 1999, “there’s no scientific or psychological basis” for that claim:

There’s no scientific or psychological basis for believing that children are affected in their sexual development or eventual sexual orientation by exposure to homosexuality–on television or in real life. If the creators of cartoons are intentionally or unintentionally giving children the idea that gay people are part of the big, happy human family, that’s a good thing, not a bad one.

The audience applauded Rowling’s message because it was one of tolerance; Falwell was criticized because his one was of hatred, based on gay stereotypes. The need for tolerance is reinforced by the conservative blogosphere’s reaction to a fictional character being gay.

Digg It!

A new article on WorldNetDaily reports:

Staff members for President Bush have helped congressional staffers work on “religious exemption” language for a new “anti-discrimination” proposal that actually would codify in federal statutes an anti-Christian bias, and that will make it harder for him to veto, according to an activist group.

“Americans For Truth has learned that a White House official has boasted to pro-family leaders attending a private administration briefing that White House staffers were involved in the negotiations to craft expanded religious exemption language for the new ENDA bill,” according to Peter LaBarbera’s Americans For Truth organization.

“At the briefing, the White House official did not commit to the assembled evangelical leaders that the president would veto [ENDA], saying that they will wait to see the bill’s final language, according to our source.”

Aravosis explains why this revelation is significant: “White House staffers were involved in negotiating ENDA’s language. That’s huge, if true. It means that the White House either isn’t sure whether it will veto ENDA (or they think they may support it), and therefore they want the bill as ‘good’ as possible for their side. Or it means that the White House isn’t sure that they can stop ENDA.”

UPDATE: Support ENDA here.

The Pentagon has engaged in an aggressive U.S. grassroots efforts to drum up support for Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the guise of supporting the troops. A central front in this effort has been the “non-political” America Supports You (ASY) program. (One branch of ASY is Operation Straight Up, an “evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military.”)

As the New York Times reported in May, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) is currently investigating whether Pentagon officials “engaged in improper fund-raising and unauthorized spending” for the program. Many Pentagon officials believe that efforts such as ASY are nothing more than “tax-payer-funded propaganda,” with a large portion of the funds going to the PR firm Susan Davis International to bolster domestic support for the war.

On Saturday, the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that it, too, is now part of the IG’s investigation. Without the knowledge of top editors, the Pentagon transferred Stars and Stripes funds to Susan Davis International for ASY promotion:

But documents obtained Friday show that Stars and Stripes awarded a $499,000 purchase agreement in July 2006 for a public relations firm to represent America Supports You. [...]

One of the tasks the document outlines for Susan Davis International is to develop “[m]edia strategy, message and outreach for communications nationwide in markets and in overseas areas of military deployments and operations.”

The revelations have caused “extreme concern” among the Stars and Stripes staff, who believe they may jeopardize their legitimacy as an “editorially independent newspaper.”

The common link between Stars and Stripes and ASY is Pentagon communications official Allison Barber, who heads both ASY and American Forces Information Service, the parent organization for Stars and Stripes. As the American public has become increasingly disaffected with Bush’s war policies, Barber has had to ramp up the administration’s PR efforts.

This isn’t the first time Barber has been caught in unethical doings. In 2005, she “insisted” to reporters that questions from U.S. troops to Bush during a press conference “were not rehearsed.” Later she was caught on tape showing just the opposite — that she had “drilled through” “all six” of the questions that Bush was going to ask.

At least 10 different wildfires are raging across California, forcing hundreds of thousands of residents to flee their homes. “It’s a tragic time for California,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said. Right-wing pundit Glenn Beck views the situation quite differently. On his radio show today, Beck said: “I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.” Media Matters has the audio.