Was scanning the AP newswire this morning and this popped up;
ATLANTA - A suburban county that sparked a public outcry when its libraries temporarily eliminated funding for Spanish-language fiction is now being asked to ban Harry Potter books from its schools.
Laura Mallory, a mother of four, told a hearing officer for the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Tuesday that the popular fiction series is an "evil" attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.
Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban "Macbeth" and "Cinderella."
"There's a mountain of evidence for keeping Harry Potter," she said, adding that the books don't support any particular religion but present instead universal themes of friendship and overcoming adversity.
In June, the county's library board eliminated the $3,000 that had been set aside to buy Spanish-language fiction in the coming fiscal year. One board member said the move came after some residents objected to using taxpayer dollars to entertain readers who might be illegal immigrants.
Days later, the board reversed its decision amid accusations that the move was anti-Hispanic.
Obviously this Laura Mallory has a lot of time on her hands if banning Harry Potter is her cause de celeb.
Like the foolish woman in the 1980’s who called for the ban of Dungeons and Dragons, there is much intellectual dishonesty in this approach. The first problem being that this Ms Mallory has likely never read any of the Harry Potter books. This is an assumption of course, but any reasonable person who has read the novels would never come up with this conclusion. Rowling really does not mention much about religion be it Wicca, Christianity or polytheism.
The funny thing is this Ms Mallory plays the Wicca card on this issue. The problem is Wicca is a hokey, faux religion. It was made up in 1954 by a British civil servant. Its roots are murky and completely unverifiable.
Wicca is to paganism what Mormonism is to Christianity. A philosophical house of cards and not any profound religious movement. While to me all religion is hokey, both of these are fien example of make believe people pass off as truth. However misplaced Ms Mallory’s argument is based even the most sursory research woudl yield that Wicca is a religion of “good.” Evil magic in anti-thetical to them.
This is simply bible thumping at it grandest and should the Gwinnett County Board of Education actually ban Harry Potter it is a grand victory for the ignorant and religiously addled. They might as well light crosses on their lawn and turn the clock back 150 years.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca
AP
