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VIDEO: Lord of the Rings Film Star Ian McKellen Admits to Ripping Out Hotel Bible Sections Against Homosexuality

By John-Henry Westen

AUCKLAND, NZ, August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - British Actor Ian McKellen who has used the mega-stardom he achieved playing Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films to promote homosexuality, has admitted to ripping out pages of hotel bibles that refer to homosexuality.

In an August 10 interview on New Zealand's TV1 Close Up program McKellen was confronted by the interviewer questioning the truth of the rumour "He's the one, that when he stays in hotels rips the part of the bible out that criticizes homosexuality."

"Yes it is true," responded McKellen it's even tones.  "Its Leviticus 18:22 that I object to, or is it 22:18, I've always got to look it up.  Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination. And they, I think the punishment for an abomination was being stoned to death," he said.

McKellen added, "I think it's rather obscene and pornographic, and shouldn't be there, so I remove it."

Asked how many bibles he has vandalized, McKellen replied, "I have no idea, but other people do it as well, people send me evidence that they have been removing that."

McKellen has been vandalizing bibles in the same fashion for at least a few years.  He first admitted publicly to the activity in 2004 in an interview with the UK Telegraph. (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=4UNBF1MS0VDI3QFIQMFCFF4AVC... )

In May last year, McKellen campaigned for homosexual 'marriage' in Britain.  He complained that a then-new UK law allowing homosexual civil unions did not go far enough. "I really can't see why the government couldn't just say gay people can get married - that would have been true equality and so much simpler.  But that hasn't been done because they couldn't face the furore," he said.

Ironically, the genius behind the story which gave McKellen his current pedestal - J.R. Tolkien - held that homosexuality was a disorder and was a staunch defender of traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality.

Tolkien's thoughts on human sexuality are most clearly represented in his personal writings.  In Tolkien's letter to his then-21 year old son Michael, he warned that illicit sexuality is one of the prime dangers for souls.  "The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject," he wrote. 

Tolkien was very aware of the hardships of remaining faithful in marriage, but recognized that only in God's plan for marriage can happiness be found.  He wrote, "No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial." And in another place he said, "Christian marriage is not a prohibition of sexual intercourse, but the correct way of sexual temperance--in fact probably the best way of getting the most satisfying sexual pleasure."

See the TV1 Up Close interview with McKellen here:
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/1287942?bandwidth=128k

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