Ga. mother seeks Harry Potter ban

Yahoo ^

[SmoothTalker]

"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.""

[MamaTexan]

What is allegedly so bad about the Captain Underpants books??

My daughter had a couple. They're awful. IMHO they're horribly written pieces of sophomoric drivel.

Listening to a bunch of kids play Row Row Row Your Boat with their armpits would be funnier.

[af_vet_rr]

Again?? I thought we settled this particular fetish years ago!

Nope, there will always be people with too much time on their hands. She's complaining about Harry Potter while her kids probably play videogames and surf the internet or watch television in the evening, and see much worse than anything in Harry Pottter (and if they aren't doing it at their house, they are doing it at the houses of friends).

[Burkean]

The reason she was given is the witchcraft. Actually I think they termed it satanic and anti-Christian. She argued that Medea pre-dated Christ, but I think that went beyond the board's historical understanding and reference.

This was pre-Andrea Yates, so I don't think the child killing really registered on their radar.

[af_vet_rr]

And whose fault, exactly, would that be? Perhaps the Christian parents who didn't tell the kid HP was a work of fiction and the Bible is a work of faith?

LOL! I do see your point, but some women (and a few men) were just BORN with a case of the 'vapors', and nothing will suit them but to have the world revolve in a manner they personally approve of.

A couple of years ago, here or somewhere else, somebody posted a picture of a kid crying next to the side of a house with a photoshopped broom next to them, and a photoshopped copy of Harry Potter on the roof, with the text "rather than spending the time trying to get Harry Potter banned, maybe you should have been teaching your kids the difference between real and imaginary".

[darkangel82]

Naw. Just Alahamora the front door and go shopping! :-)

LOL!

[MamaTexan]

"rather than spending the time trying to get Harry Potter banned, maybe you should have been teaching your kids the difference between real and imaginary".

ROFL! I love it.

Nothing confuses these type of people more than being confronted with the truth.

[Tax-chick]

I'd trade several kids and a gerbil for an Instantly Toilet Trained spell :-).

[schwing_wifey]

She has the same disease as Cindy Sheehan...

"I'm a nobody but I want 15 mins of fame" -icitis

[schwing_wifey]

Its the truth... they're only recently cracking down on homes in neighborhoods that seem to have 20 people living in them and 6 cars parked on the street in front...

that said... I'm still teaching my son to speak Spanish so he can help direct the lawn guys when they're trimming our hedges in Alpharetta (over in North Fulton)...

;D

p.s. I know I shouldn't joke...it IS a real problem... But, I think putting excess Florida aligators in the Rio Grande would be a good start....

[WestVirginiaRebel]

[DugMac]

What is the difference between Harry Potter and The Wizard Of Oz? Both have wizards and spells yet one has become a tradition in America where families watch the movie which is shown every year. As a child I read all th Oz books. My peers and I knew it was fantasy. Those books created the avid reader I am today (100+ books a year).

This woman is a moron.

[muir_redwoods]

"This is only "news" because the media is determined to depict religious believers as insanely threatening to basic liberties ... in other words, we're only reading this because someone felt it had anti-Christian propaganda value."

It's only "news" because she's nuts

[Tax-chick]

The world is full of people doing silly and pointless things. Many of them actually cause some harm! Only certain types are judged "newsworthy," because they fit into the accepted storylines.

[Prysson]

BINGO

[Aquinasfan]

the popular fiction series is an "evil" attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion."

Pretty much. The protagonist is a wizard or warlock, so the book serves to normalize witchcraft. If you need evidence, just go to Amazon and read the kids' reviews of her books. Or consider the words of the media officer of the english Pagan Federation:

Media officer Andy Norfolk said: "In response to the increased queries coming from youngsters we established a youth officer, not to promote paganism, because that would be against pagan ethics, but merely to answer these queries and allow someone to offer advice and information.

"It is quite probably linked to things like Harry Potter, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Every time an article on witchcraft or paganism appears, we had a huge surge in calls, mostly from young girls."

According to Rowling:

Harry's author, J.K. Rowling, now richer than the queen and the wealthiest woman in show business, told Malcolm Jones in a Newsweek interview, "I get letters from children addressed to Professor Dumbledore (headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the book setting), and it's not a joke, begging to be let into Hogwarts, and some of them are really sad. Because they want it to be true so badly they've convinced themselves it's true."

Sadly, HP is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the portrayal of the occult in books marketed to teenagers. In fact, if you walk through Barnes and Nobles sci-fi/fantasy section, you will find little else.

This woman's attempt to ban HP won't succeed, but her effort is commendable.

[Broken_Hearts978]

Can you say PARANOID??? I feel terribly sorry for this woman's children...I wonder what her husband must think of her.

[Broken_Hearts978]

Can you say PARANOID???? I feel sorry for her children...having to grow up with that nut case. I wonder what her husband thinks of her.

[Houmatt]

Sadly, there have been and will always be people who simply cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. It happens and we have to accept that.

But commending a woman for trying to remove a series of books from school libraries that she in all likelihood has never even read herself is detestable.

Are you even aware the woman is so far removed from reality she has actually implied the Harry Potter series is to blame for recent school shootings (most of which were committed by adults)?

I would like to ask Laura Malloy (and you) a simple question:

What about Lord Of The Rings? Or The Wizard of Oz? The Chronicles of Narnia? All those books contain depictions of the use of magic, so why isn't Laura (or you) out there trying to remove those books from school shelves?

Either you should be consistent or be called hypocrites. It's as simple as that.

[af_vet_rr]

Nothing confuses these type of people more than being confronted with the truth.

I've never met any person with a decent amount of common sense who was into any cults or witchcraft or any of that nonsense.

In my view, banning any of these types of books, whether it's Harry Potter or Wizard of Oz - they do absolutely nothing, because removing the books does not give the child common sense. You have to teach them that - we can ban the internet, video games, every single book in the world, and it would accomplish absoluately nothing, because they will fall for something, somewhere, if they have no common sense.

In a way, these types of things are a sign of parents not wanting to be parents - they want the government to help them out.

It's also kind of ironic in a way, because if you look at the societies where censorship, banning of various materials, etc., is normal, they happen to be pretty much either Communist or Islamic.

[af_vet_rr]

Don't worry; she can't be a big reader, if she's just discovering Harry Potter now.

LOL. God help us if she hears about this "internet thing" that Al Gore invented.