Sir Ian McKellen, the much-lauded gay British film and stage actor who says he adores New Zealand since portraying the majestic wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, has admitted that he regularly tears an offensive section out of Bibles placed in hotel rooms. Leviticus 18:12 states "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." McKellen, who is in New Zealand to perform in a touring season of Chekov's The Seagull and Shakespeare's King Lear, this evening described that section of the Bible as "obscene" and "pornographic." McKellen says he tears the offending section out when he stays in hotels and says that he knows of other people who do the same. "That passage is not a comfort for someone spending a lonely night in a hotel room," he said with a wry smile during an interview on this evening's TV1 Close Up programme. Ref: GTVNZ; GayNZ.com (j)
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 9th August 2007 - 10:26am