The late esteemed headmaster Albus Dumbledore came out of the closet almost a week ago. Or, rather, J.K. Rowling threw him out of it.

The phenomenal series that is “Harry Potter” is over now, having ended last summer. But it would seem that author Rowling is not coping well with sharing the spotlight with others after years of hogging most of the attention.

Rowling read from the seventh book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” at Carnegie Hall in New York, and took questions from the audience afterward. According to Newsweek, when someone asked if Dumbledore had ever been in love, Rowling replied with a smile, “Dumbledore is gay, actually.”

Of course she smiled! She knew the international reaction she would get. And she knew her book was back in the limelight. Never mind that she accomplished this by exploiting the struggle for gay rights. More on that in a moment.

Rowling was right to worry about not being on the front of every magazine and newspaper anymore. “Harry Potter” has been creeping to the back of our minds. The next movie isn’t due for a while and. since the last book in the series came out, almost all of us are moving on with life.

In fact, just a few weeks after the last “Harry Potter” came out, a new book series by Stephenie Meyer about a teenager and her vampire boyfriend called “Eclipse” took the best-selling spot. ABC News’s headline read “Will New Bestseller ‘Eclipse’ Harry Potter?”

As time goes on, more and more things threaten Harry’s 15 minutes of fame. Just because the great “Harry Potter” series has finished does not mean people are going to stop writing.

But Rowling, of course, wants to make sure we don’t forget how amazing she is. So she pulls this publicity stunt. The timing is perfect. She’s in front of a crowd of Potter fans in the middle of New York. There could not be a better time to make this announcement.

And, yes, more people will buy her books now that she’s made one of her characters gay. Not only that, more people will be buying them in order to burn them, because not only do they feature witchcraft, but now homosexuality. Rowling knows this, and a dime’s a dime and a million’s a million, no matter what happens to the book after it’s been bought.

Some say by making Dumbledore gay, Rowling is making strides for the gay community. But it’s a step back in the struggle for gay rights to have this woman use the cause for her own monetary gain. It’s unethical, shameful behavior, and we should not tolerate it, let alone praise it.

The question I really want to ask is: Why does it matter whether Dumbledore is gay or straight? I never even thought about it. He’s like Merlin or Gandalf: old, wise and incredibly powerful. No romance needed, or really even wanted. Do you want to know about Yoda’s sex life? These are masters of magical, mystical forces – they’re a step above the rest of humankind, and attributing any sexual orientation to them is somehow perverse.

Some fans have speculated about Dumbledore’s sexuality, but not all. Every one of us read that text with our own ideas in our minds to complete the world that Rowling so magnificently constructed for us. It weakens her beautiful story to throw something in that was never a part of the books later.

So, do we care if Dumbledore is gay? I don’t. But I do care that, when Rowling pulled this unethical stunt, she exploited a group of people and disassembled the wizarding world for many readers who had come to different conclusions about Dumbledore.

– Bailey Lewis is a sophomore in

English from Indianola.