Friday, October 6, 2006

Mother appeals decision on Potter ban in libraries

Now, as we all know, Harry Potter is evil, possessed by the devil, and your child will be possessed by the devil simply from reading his devil-ish books. In fact, I think you all should have a ritualitistic book burning to purge such evil from your minds. Why are you here? Off with you and the book burning! I mean, its main character is named Harry Potter...POT! See, the book is even advocating marijuana use! ...Say WHAT? Well, according to a Gwinnett County, Georgia mom, Harry Potter is Evil Incarnate and teaches children witchcraft. She seeks the ban the book from school libraries because it preaches Evil. Never mind that the book is whimsical and encourages imagination and reading. It is Evil because its main character is a sorcerer and the book is not the bible. We have to fight against such nonthought, people. That said, I do find such idiocy to be somewhat pathetically amusing...in a sort of scary way. I mostly feel bad for people like Laura Malloy of Georgia, because she lives her life in such ignorance. But I will fight tooth and nail against her spreading the ignorance around.

9 comments:

Monkey Chops said...

Not wishing to pick on this woman, but has she actually read the Bible? It's easily one of the oldest pieces of pornography in literature. Incest, masturbation, rape... it goes on and on. She should really simmer down.

Furthermore - are there any reports of children practising witchcraft as a result of reading Harry Potter? Y'know, I'd be more open-minded to her objections if there were such proof!

Red Tulips said...

Chops:

I totally agree re: the bible. As far as withcraft...

The fear of witchcraft would have to be based on a belief that withcraft is real, no? I mean, even if kids actually became witches and sorcerers, wouldn't that not be a problem if witchcraft was not real?

This lady obviously has many mental problems to say the LEAST!

Jason said...

This isn't nearly as funny as the father who wanted the school to ban "farenheit 451" because his daughter was afraid to read it because of supposed profanity in the book.

Red Tulips said...

P.S.: Interesting discussions about culture, religion, Islam, and Israel on Bint Alshamsa's blog. I think you will enjoy it, Monkey Chops. I am curious what you think. She has a different perspective than both of us, and debating her is intellectually stimulating.

http://bintalshamsa.blogspot.com/

Red Tulips said...

Jason:

Irony is indeed ironic, no?

Jason said...

The thing that really struck me about that story, assuming the Father is telling the truth, is that the teenage daughter, I think she was 14, maybe 16, came to HIM, on her own, and said she was afraid of reading a classic book because of the bad words.

What does that say? I think it says that kid is already pretty damned brainwashed.

Thomas Forsyth said...

Monkey Chops> I'd say Kama Sutra has a few millenia on the Bible for that score, but I read them for the articles ;)

(10 points if you catch the joke)

Now, I think the whole Harry Potter is the anti-Christ nonsense is a sign of the ignorance of people who probably dislike Harry Potter because his aprenst aren't related, and these fundies would probably be Ron/Ginnie shippers.

To me, the magic in Harry Potter is more alchemy than Witchcraft, plus Witchcraft is a religion while the students at Hogwarts neevr talk of Solstice or say "Blessed Be".

I remember comments by a former girlfriend's mother that were very critical of Harry Potter based upon religious sources she wouldn't cite. She also is not too fond of Christian fantasy like Lord of the Rings and the Narnia Chronicles, though thankfully she is the only one in the family with such a narrow mind, and she didn't even get a joke I made about the mention of Endor in the Bible.

I do of course make jokes about Harry Pothead, but I think the novels are great, and an easy read, especially comapred to Atlas Shrugged (a novel I also adore), and I can't wait to read Part 7.

Jason> My mother wasn't thrilled when I read The Prince at 15, but she would do nothing to stop me, either. Granted, every room in my house had a library and my motehr was a Philosophy/English double major, even though our views often clashed, but she preferred that to me not having opinion.

Kevin said...

Well Rowling herself is greatly amused that her books suffer repeated attempts to get banned in America. Shes with the greats of literature or something she said.

The bible is full of everything that the american christians detest.
There are some passages in the bible that relate to witchcraft (though i have the King James the first bible, so i guess that was added in for his benefit).
Anyway there is a theme of love over evil in the Potter books. And friendship overcoming obstacles etc.

As for the American christians they are so hooked on the book of revelations that everything they see is either against God or part of the Anti Christs greater plan to take over the world after the rapture happens (which i think is a bit tenious at best).
Scarey thing is these people take the book of revelations seriously and believe we are in the end times and will do just about anything to speed things up. The Book of revelations was about Rome and Nero in particular (his name equals the number of the beast in Hebrew numerology).

I think banning books is wrong, even if they are hate filled books. You can only dismiss those kinds of books if you can read them and intellectual arguements can ridcule that book etc.
Banning books just makes people want to read them even more. As it seems naughty and rude to do so.

bint alshamsa said...

Good grief! This is just embarrassing! I really wish these people would come up with another religion so that I didn't have to feel like I have to constantly explain to people that I don't believe in that sort of Christianity.

I used to babysit a girl whose parents were separated. Her father was a total loon. I wanted to take her to go and see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Ice but he didn't approve because the story features "magic". Fortunately, I worked for the girl's mother who was intelligent enough to understand the concept of fairytales. At the time, I couldn't help but think that I could see why the woman had took her kid and left that lunatic of a husband she had.

I come from a very strict Christian family but even my parents simply told us what they'd prefer for us to read without stopping us from reading whatever we wanted as long as it wasn't too violent or featuring a lot of nudity---which means PlayBoy was a no-no even if my brothers wanted to read it "for the articles" Thomas!

This Malloy person has waaayyyy too much time on her hands! I hope that more of these people start homeschooling their kids and leave the rest of us alone. I certainly don't need her deciding what my child should have access to.