What is it about poor old Harry Potter that brings out the devil in so many? A teaching assistant at a London elementary school is suing for religious discrimination after she refused to listen to a 7-year-old student read aloud from a Harry Potter book. She was suspended for her "obstructive conduct over time" after she told the child, "I don't do witchcraft in any form" and "said she would be 'cursed' by hearing the novel". Oh. According to the teaching assistant, she was "'harassed, humiliated and discriminated' against because of her religious beliefs." I don't know, I think telling a 7-year-old she's basically practicing public witchcraft would be a little humiliating and feel a tad like harassment, but hey, the kid only likes the book, it's not like her religion or anything. The fact that the disciplinary action has to do with conduct "over time" makes me think there was more than one creepy child-terrifying incident, but who knows.
This is of course only the latest in the bad-Harry campaign. There's a few other interesting people out there who believe the boy-wizard has been licked by the flames of hell. See, I had no idea that when we read these books at night as part of snuggly family story time that we were really going over to the dark side. Maybe we'll have to start painting pentagrams out of goat's blood around the bed, just to get the full effect. But here's what I don't get: tons of kids books have magic and wizardry in them, so I can only assume Potter was singled out because he's so darn popular? Hey, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a magical talking lion, for pete's sake (and was made into an equally if not more violent movie). And yes, I do know LWW bears some similarity with another famous story. Maybe we just need fabricate some kind of biblical parallel for all the muggles, and the Potter protesters will go away.
P.S. My dad, an ordained minister, enjoyed the Potter books immensely, which I say to illustrate the really, really obvious: Harry-hating ain't a Christian thing.
