"Whenever I stay in a hotel I always check to see if they have a Gideon Bible, and if they do I tear out a page," the veteran actor told New York gossipist Baird Jones at the premiere party for the film "Iris," which stars both Kate Winslet and Judy Dench as the late writer Iris Murdoch. "I turn to Leviticus 18:22 and rip out that page which is directed against homosexuals; it is one of the Leviticus Laws. I don't know if anyone ever even notices, but I really take exception to that section and I think by now I must have ripped out a few hundred pages."Vandalism-shmandalism, the way McKellen sees it, he's doing it for the good of humanity.
"Who knows? There might be someone who has insomnia who stays awake all night who reads the Bible because they have nothing else to do and who might be especially vulnerable to what I really think is Leviticus' pornography," he says, "so I just remove it."
But it's not a totally selfless act. "Helps me to get to sleep better," he says. "I'll say that much."
Because Sir Ian is as gay as they come and that's why he tears pages out of Leviticus.
McKellen, an admitted homosexual, later explained that the theater introduced him to other gay men, which eased his acceptance of his own sexuality. He became a vocal activist, and one of a handful of openly gay knights when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1989.
In 1993, he became recognizable to American television audiences playing gay men in And the Band Played On and Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, two acclaimed TV miniseries; McKellen earned an Emmy nomination for his work in the former.
http://tribute.ca/bio.asp?id=2373
This may be a fact you already know, so I apologize in advance if you are already aware of his homosexuality. I imagine Sir Ian really hates Leviticus since that's the book where there is some VERY strong condemnation of homosexuality.
I wonder if he would ever admit to defacing a Koran? Since I've never read it, I don't know if it mentions homosexuality or not--but I don't believe the Muslims are that keen on the whole man-on-man thing. It's so much safer to beat up on the Bible--less beheadings.
FMCDH(BITS)
I think Sir Ian may be telling fibs about his fantasies. Perhaps there are full bibles in the hotels where he stays, but the Gideon society often puts in bibles with Psalms, Proverbs and the New Testament only.