The commentary on Albus Dumbledore (Oct. 26) is a highly offensive piece that absolutely smacks of discrimination and hate. By stating that announcing one’s homosexuality is akin to traumatizing a child for the rest of their lives, one cannot ignore how ignorant and hurtful this piece is. It would have been appropriate to write about how Rowling’s announcement was uncalled for, how she was probably pushing for higher book sales. What was written, however, was an elementary piece of journalism that I would only expect from someone who has led a very sheltered life. Throughout this piece, I found many snippets that I would like to disagree with as boldly as I am allowed.

“The simplicity [of the book] was tarnished recently because of Rowling’s comments.” Now, being a member of the gay community here at SLU, I can tell you that if you knew any gay person, you would know how “complex” it is being gay. Not only must we deal with personal issues, we must tolerate hate and ignorance from closed-minded individuals.

“Why is she taking the innocence of her audience?” If kids (especially 8th graders and older) don’t get the message about homosexuality from a positive source, they will get their information from commentaries like this with messages of hate. Let me point out a few things: internet pop-ups have not been proven to “scar a child forever,” video games and TV have not been proven to cause children to be violent and being gay is never a negative influence on anyone nor is it ever wrong!

Later [the author said] that we need to “set a good example.” I think you might have wanted to say “set a good straight example.” If this was written, then I would have understood that this commentary was really aimed at slamming homosexuality.

Andrew Amelung
Sophomore