The moronic rightwing Mommy who, earlier this year, lost her bid to have Harry Potter pulled from the shelves of Gwinnett County School System libraries, is at it again.
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.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
For the record I have been a Wiccan for thirty years. Harry Potter has NOTHING to do with my religion, other than the use of the word "witch" to describe female mages. As far as I can tell, Hogwart's School of Magic and Wizardry is typically British and lukewarmly Christian. They celebrate Halloween, not Samhain, and Christmas, not the winter solstice. There is NO mention made of invoking a Deity when they use magic, andno ritual involved beyond a flick of the wand. In fact their spells are one or two words long, rather than the more involved ones Wiccans use.
The first time around, Ms. Mallory claimed that reading Harry Potter would threaten children's immortal souls by leading them to summon demons and worship Satan. The kids at Hogwart's never summon demons; in fact, despite what Ms. Mallory claims, there is no mention of demons at all. Of course, Ms. Mallory couldn't know that since she hasn't even read a single page of Rowling's books. They're long, she explained, ad she is very busy. But not too busy to spend many hours on the Net searching anti-Harry sites written by Christians as rabidly ignorant as herself. I diaried THAT round here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The current accusation is much scarier.
While she only targets Wicca in her complaint, her argument is that Harry Potter
and his pals should be banned because they portray a religion other than Christianity in a
favorable light. She seems to believe that freedom of speech and religion only apply to
Christians. I found myself wondering how she would feel if a Wiccan parent lodged a
similar complaint, arguing that having the Bible or books of Bible stories in public
schools is an attempt to proselytize for Christianity. I don't think she'd get that the
principle she wants established, would apply to Christianity as well as other faiths, since
the first amendment applies to ALL religions equally.
And the answer to my hypothetical question is "NO!" Because to Ms. Mallory and her
Co-believers in the form of Christianity that has been tainted Christian Nationalism,
There is Only One True Way--hers. The rest of us are all worshipping Satan and
are too deluded to recognize it.
If I had a kid in school here, I'd be sorely tempted to demand that all Christian books be
removed from the shelves because they are part of an Evil Plot to turn my children into
braindead rightwing asshat bigoted ignorant fundy zombies, just to make a point.
Instead I manage to walk past the large Inspirational section of my library without
making gagging noises, and ignore the fact that for every one book by a liberal or a
Dem, they have 10-15 by rightwing pundits and pols. I do admit to flipping off the
Lifeway Christian Store every time I pass it, but I haven't picketed it and I haven't set
Interfered with anyone seeking to enter.
In any case, Ms. Mallory's complaint probably won't get anywhere this time around. The last time, they admitted that the main reason they didn't cave was that the story had gotten international coverage and lots of pixels on the blogosphere, and they knew if they banned it, they'd be a laughingstock around the world. They learned their lesson.
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."
But the scary part of all this is how ignorant many rightwing Christians are about the first amendment. To them, freedom of religion was only meant to apply to Christians, because the Founding Fathers were all Christians (NOT) and this was meant to be a Christian Nation (NOT). The rest of us, in their view, should be grateful we're allowed to live here at all, and are damned lucky our demonic faiths aren't enough to get our citizenship yanked.
And it's gonna get worse as more and more kids are homeschooled with curriculum from rightwing Christian colleges and presses. It's all part of the major disconnect from reality that Christian Nationalism has brought about. There really are two cultures--but John Edwards got it wrong. The divide isn't between rich and poor (though that plays a part). No, it's Christian Nationalists who live in a mythological place where Jefferson wasn't a Deist, Ben Franklin never cheated on his wife, all the Founding Fathers were at the least, members of the Southern Baptist Convention (even though wasn't founded until several decades AFTER the Revolution) and there's just as much hard scientific evidence for creationism as for evolution---against Everybody Else.
And if that doesn't scare you, read the two parts of Holy Smoke which detail the ideas which have infiltrated conservative Christianity and turned it into a far greater danger to American democracy than foreign terrorist. Unless you want to live in a theocracy run by the likes of Pat Robertson, you should be scared shitless.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
You SHOULD be scared--because these guys VOTE, and they have taken this country to, not just the right, but the Religious Right. Unless you want to join them in their mythological land, you'd better be prepared to fight them tooth and nail. This Mommy is just one woman, but she is TYPICAL.
Oh, yeah, and when I looked at her, I thought at first I was seeing my younger sis-in-law. They are very much the same physical type, and apparently of the same mindset, sicne this is one of the two sisters-in-law who told my MIL that if we were still lving under her roof, they would not come their for the holidays because my Wiccan, liberal husband and I "make them uncomfortable."
If the Christian Nationalists win and achieve their goal of enstating Biblical law instead of the constitution, they'll probably turn us in and dance around the pyre when they burn us at the stake. Their daughters will roast marshamallows and sing peppy hymns as we roast.
UPDATE: Here's a link to local stories on this broad.
http://www.ajc.com/gwinnett/content/metro/stories/2006/10/01/1002harry.html
Apparently there WILL be a hearing and the chool baord will vote Yet Again, wasting time and money on this woman's mental health issues.