I think it's quite a good idea, to be honest. When kids are exposed to gay people in the media, they tend to be young, flamboyant guys. The idea that being gay isn't limited to young people who centre their whole identity around their sexuality is quite important, I think. The character of Dumbledore is an elderly, authority figure whose sexuality isn't a governing feature of his role in the story. Essentially, I think it's an important message that someone's sexuality can be irrelevent to some roles that they play. You could get the impression from the TV that gay people are all like Quentin Crisp or Julian Clarey or Boy George, but actually your headmaster or chief of the wizarding council could be gay and it need not affect his relationship with the world at large.
Because the only reason that anyone in any heroic position could be anything other than white straight male is of course because of political correctness.
It has nothing to do with her trying to pander to the masses, if that was the case she would have made it clear in the books that he was gay. If anything she has further alienated the nutjob christian community.
This would explain many details of the books that I originally didn't notice on first read.
I expect that when my little one is old enough, I will again be reading the Harry Potter books to her as bed time stories. There is no way I will be able to avoid looking for additional signs of Dumbledore's sexual preference when that happens.
Ironically enough, Buckeye, there isn't a whole lot. I'm gay. I've read the books several times over. Never once got that "vibe" from the character. I respect Ms. Rowlings for what she did by outing him (conveniently enough AFTER the series has ended, of course), but there was never anything that struck me as, well, gay, when it came to Dumbledore.
Y'all know Kingsley Shacklebolt is black right? And he becaeme the Interim minister of Magic. Also, he's the baddest motha-shut-yo-mouth in that whole series. Clearly Rowling is all about diversity.
I think the signs are more obvious in retrospect. For instance, when Dumbledore talks about his battle with Jerry Falwell, the book never gets into details as to why the fight started ("Order of The Phoenix" I think?). Now it seems pretty obvious why. I would also add Dumbledore is pretty serious about his collection of old relics and antiques acquired over the years. And there is the one scene in the movie "Goblet of Fire" (I don't think it was mentioned in the book) where Harry is in Dumbledore's office. As they are panning across the magic books along the wall, there are several Jeff Stryker videos visable. At the time, the only thing that went through my mind was that a sophisticated guy like Dumbledore would probably have converted to DVD by now.