It is probably no secret to any of you that dominionists--and especially neopentecostal dominionists--have absolutely no love lost for the Harry Potter series (as it is, the Assemblies churches that conduct Harry Potter book-burnings think C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia flirt too much with things magickal for their liking, much less the crew at Hogwart's School for Wizards).

However, I have a sense that the dominionists are now going to be weaving the anti-LGBT hate machine (a la "Watchmen On The Walls") into their Hate Of The Boy Who Lived.

You see...it appears that the dear Mrs. Rowling publically outed no less than the head of Hogwarts as being flaming in an entirely different sense than his Patronus taking form of a phoenix....

The Associated Press reports:

NEW YORK - Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.
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After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."

After acknowledgement of the HP slash community online (and a note that even the movie director had to be informed that Dumbledore Didn't Like Women when the script was being written for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), it seems that Mrs. Rowling has admitted that this is likely to cause even more of a chance for the Harry Potter books to end up (again) at the top ten of the Banned Books List for 2008:

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

"The Leaky Cauldron" (a Harry Potter fan community blog) also details a bit more:

The question was: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?

JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extend, but he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

Jo also said after revelation: "I had to give you something to talk about for the next 10 years...Just imagine the fan fiction now.

Oh my god. Already, I can hear the heads of thousands of people exploding.

In relation to dominionism, this IS definitely something we will need to keep an eye on--seriously, with media sources all over the Internet carrying this news now, I will eat my hat (not necessarily a Sorting Hat) if dominionist groups don't start challenging the Harry Potter books on the basis of Dumbledore being canonically gay. Sadly, this may expand book challenges even further as well (and, even more disturbingly, they may have a greater chance of success--there are school boards that will remove works friendly to LGBT people who will not remove works claimed to be "Satanic" for merely containing depictions of wizards in a not-burning-at-the-stake light). Those of you who do monitor the dominionist groups re propoganda may want to keep a close ear.

At least one article has noted the real possibility this could increase book challenges by dominionists against the Harry Potter series:

Rowling is likely to face criticism on another front. The news that a major character is gay, in what is likely the most popular children's book series of all time, is almost certain to inflame the author's critics in some corners of the Christian community. Indeed, the Harry Potter books have already faced frequent criticism and calls to be banned for their use of magic. No doubt those critics will only take this news as more ammunition in their fight against the books.