In the best trolling of the Westboro Baptist Church the world has ever seen, a Kansas nonprofit staged the wedding of gay wizard icons Dumbledore and Gandalf last Sunday.
The idea for the wedding came from a Twitter spat between Harry Potter author JK Rowling and the gay-haters at Fred Phelps’s Westboro Baptist Church in late May. The tweets centered around Ireland making same-sex marriage legal, as well as a popular meme that suggested the wizards marry on the green isle.
https://twitter.com/WBCsigns/status/603255345692160000
.@WBCsigns Alas, the sheer awesomeness of such a union in such a place would blow your tiny bigoted minds out of your thick sloping skulls.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 26, 2015
When the Westboro Baptist Church promised to picket a potential wizard wedding, the Kansas nonprofit Planting Peace, which owns the house directly across the street from church headquarters in Topeka, sprung into action. The group’s rainbow-painted Equality House was the perfect locale for a magical gay union.
The ceremony took place on Sunday afternoon, with notably few protestors. It started off with a little harp music to set the tone.
#WizardWedding #JKWedding pic.twitter.com/vT0VUgi7RO
— Equality House (@Equality_House) June 7, 2015
The wizards were united by Davis Hammett, Planting Peace’s director of operations.
#WizardWedding #JKWedding pic.twitter.com/eypaS6ISJj
— Equality House (@Equality_House) June 7, 2015
There were so many spectators in attendance, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal, that volunteers had to stand on the street and direct traffic. Seats were set up for about 50 people, but more than 240 showed up. As the same-sex senior couple locked lips, one woman let out an Amazonian warrior holler.
#WizardWedding #JKWedding Ow Owwww! pic.twitter.com/zZrqdmeh2y
— Equality House (@Equality_House) June 7, 2015
Although the Westboro Baptist Church headquarters were just a few feet away from the ceremony, church members were suspiciously absent from the ceremony, despite the threats of protest that prompted the wedding itself. Later, a WBC member responded by tweeting a kind of sad picture of a lone picket sign, propped up against what looks like the church’s porch.
.@BrookeKSNT of course we picketed #JKwedding! You don’t need a person for it to be a picket: pic.twitter.com/2QjKr4gmbb
— God Hates The Media (@GodH8sMedia) June 7, 2015
This time, it seems, wizardly love won over hate. Or maybe it was the sheer force of fandom that saved the day. Either way: awwww.
https://twitter.com/saruhli/status/607632632835416065
Photo via Digibard/FLICKR (CC BY 2.0)
