Openly gay actor Ian McKellen recently told Details magazine that he proudly defaces Bibles left in hotel nightstands, ripping out pages containing verses which condemn homosexual behavior. USA Today's Leslie Miller picked up on this yesterday for the paper's "Faith & Reason" blog, after spying a blog post by colleague Barbara De Lollis in a November 16 post for her Hotel Check-In blog for USA Today.
For her part, De Lollis relayed the news item and wondered, "Could word of McKellen's habit spark a movement?" De Lollis went on to ask:
What do you think about Sir Ian McKellen's habit? I'm also curious how often you find hotel Bibles in your room, since many hotels - especially boutique hotels - no longer provide them in guestrooms.
Miller similarly failed to pass judgment on McKellen's defacement of hotel property and indeed seems to have failed to wonder if McKellen's petulant vandalism constitutes a property crime:
Readers: What do you think about this? Is McKellen's action sacrilegious -- or an acceptable political statement? Might others follow suit?
Perhaps De Lollis and Miller should reserve this question to ask McKellen should they ever get the chance: Would he dare extend his vandalism of sacred texts to other religions, say ripping pages out of Korans left in his hotel room in an Islamic country?
