[the guy who be short]

The question now seems to have become: did Tolkien consciously exclude homosexuality from Middle-Earth? Did he sit down and say, "You know what? There'll be no gays in my Middle-Earth."?

Not knowing much about the man himself, I can't really answer that question. I doubt he would even have considered it though, considering the society he lived in. And, if it wasn't considered, that makes homosexuality equivalent to giraffes and going to the loo; a logical extension of the real world into Tolkien's imaginary world.