So here we have a woman who has never read a Harry Potter book, but read excerpts and decides to declare them evil books indoctrinating children into the occult world of witchcraft.
Now while I find her amusing, I think she has some very serious problems.
Facts are:
Witchcraft is based on myth and superstitions, from the earliest stages of human history.
The Harry Potter books have several major themes that are positive:-
Love, Friendship and the courage to make tough choices even when the easy path is wide open.
It also deals with Evil in the form Of Lord Voldemort. Who is the very essence of evil in the books. However it is a very human evil, enhanced with the plot device of Voldemort being a very powerful wizard.
Voldemort has the same motivations that Humans sometimes tend to gravitate like moths to a flame.
Those being Immortality and power. Voldemort is a dictator who uses terror to instill fear into the hearts of his enemies and his followers. Magic is just one of his tools. He is very good at the art of misdirection and turning friends against one another. Whereas Harry is the exact opposite. He stands for all the best human qualities that one can hope for.
Those being love, friendship and respect for those who are might not be on an equal footing as you are.
Which brings me back to Laura Mallory. She is intolerant of ideas that go against her religious beliefs.
Like most Christians of her type, she has i think lost the point that Jesus made about love in general.
While you should love your friends and family, you should also show love and perhaps even pity your enemies.
So her basis for wanting the Potter books removed from Schools ?
Myth: We are trying to ban Harry Potter.
Truth: This case first began when we noticed the books in our son's elementary school classroom. We were then told by the school that anything in the school library may be used in the classroom. The original request of August 2005 asked that the books be removed from the classrooms and libraries due to the extreme evil and violent content, the promotion of witchcraft (Wicca) and the age-inappropriateness. We are not trying to ban Harry Potter. The books may of course be purchased in bookstores or checked out at public libraries, but need not be encouraged, assigned and read aloud in our children's schools and classrooms. Are they ready to put the Bible and prayer back in our schools and classrooms and read it aloud? Source.
This seems to hinge on the perception that if you don't teach kids about the bible and how to pray they will somehow be lead astray by something like Harry Potter, and turn into social misfits who will goto hell because they are not following the path that Jesus Christ laid out for Humanity, to gain entry to heaven.
Now i would like to point out that while I do have some religious beliefs, i don't follow them meekly and without question. I am open to the fact that all religions are just myths and superstitions and nothing more. Created by early man to explain the universe, and also as method to control the masses.
Or religion could actually be based on some truth, that has been obscured over the passage of time.
Now the Harry Potter books may not be to everybody's taste. But Rowling has woven some pretty heavy concepts and themes into the novels. That death is but the next great adventure to the well organised mind, that intolerance leads to death and destruction i.e. pureblood mania has created the correct environment for the type of evil that Lord Voldemort represents. In much the same way as the centuries of intolerance towards Jewish people in Christian Europe lead to the eventual rise of Hitler and his desire to purge the world of Jewish people because they had dirty blood and polluted the German race, which lead to Germany's defeat in the first world war (at least in Hitler and those of his followers minds).
But Rowling has tempered that evil with the character that is Harry Potter who shines through not with magical power but with the best human qualities (as I've already stated).
Laura Mallory may well have the best of intentions but i believe she is mistaken and would be better off tackling the issues that really matter. Developing a child's moral values through the use of different sources, be they Harry Potter books, the bible or Tolkien's masterpiece that is the lord of the rings.
Though as with any attempt to ban books, it will only make a child want to read it even more. Thus Laura Mallory has defeated herself even before shes begun.
The moral of the story ? Be open to new ideas and if you don't like those ideas, fight your points with reason, rather than resorting to the old and tested viewpoint that "God is great, Witchcraft
makes kids evil" mentality.
You can follow this story via the many Harry Potter fansites, who are literally laughing themselves silly over the whole thing, or least the pottercast gang are...
Leaky link.
