Culture for All is a new read for me. I discovered the site when Red Tulips, a contributing author on the blog, joined Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll. A few days ago, Red Tulips posted on a fundie nutball who is trying to have the Harry Potter series banned from public schools in Georgia.
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.
Source: Culture for All: Mother appeals decision on Potter ban in libraries
Laura Mallory, the evangelical mother in question, asserts that the Potter series is evil because it teaches the Wicca religion. Of course, she makes her assertion without having read the books, which is typically for the fact challenged fundamentalist movement. I've read them all, and find them anything but evil. What is Mallory thinking?
Mallory would like to see the Potter books removed from libraries and replaced with Christian books like Bible (of course), The Chronicles of Narinia, and fundie end times thriller, the Left Behind series (ok, put those book in the library too) So far, officials in Georgia have ruled on the side of sanity. Georgia is pretty close to the bible belt, so that could change.
Mallory attempted to draw a link between the Harry Potter series and the recent school shooting in her most recent testimony before a Georgia Board of Education officer.
Referring to the recent rash of deadly assaults at schools, Mallory said books that promote evil - as she claims the Potter ones do - help foster the kind of culture where school shootings happen.
Source: Daily Mail: Ban Harry Potter or face more school shootings
This is the worst kind of logic imaginable. There is no link between reading the Harry Potter series and violence, nor is there any direct link to the recent shootings. Reasoning like this is crazy. Laura Mallory seems like a Nutball candidate to me.
I went looking for a Christian blogger to find a different take on this issue. Remarkably, the first one I found, John Sugg, while celebrating Mallory's courage, seems to find Mallory a bit off target. He even suggests she read the books.
Replace Potter with "Christian" books, Mallory says. One suggestion is Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series.
Mallory doesn't want her children exposed to books that offend her beliefs. Yet many good Christians recoil at LaHaye's bloody depiction of the Final Conflict. The "rapture," a linchpin of his writings, is rejected by many denominations. It's a word not found in the Bible, and other Christians vigorously dispute the meaning of verses cited by "rapture" proponents.
Source: John Sugg.com: Harry Potter and the fault line of religion
It is easy for me to vilify somebody like Laura Mallory. Especially when she attacks something as beneficial to our children as good healthy literature which promotes reading. I want to point at her and shout IDIOT! But... She really is only trying to protect her children from something she things is evil. I think that is what good mothers are supposed to do, right? O.K. she's off base on this issue. Reason will prevail. She's in Georgia, not Texas.
