| The thing that freaks me out about this is that my reaction is:
Should it matter if Harry Potter promotes the Occult?
I mean, very few people (in the UK, anyway) of my age group really take their faith seriously these days - personally I would probably describe myself as an atheist. If we have an openminded policy towards all religions, it seems insane that we should even think of banning fictional material based on a creed that is apparently incompatible with Christianity.
Do those schools that ban books like this also ban books like the Torah, or other Holy Books of non-christian religions? I hope not, but can you imagine the outcry if they did? And surely a competing religion is a lot more sacreligious than a work of fiction?
Banning books is always wrong - even in the case where it is something quite contemptuous, like Mein Kampf (btw, I haven't read MK, but I assume it is on some level an explanantion of Hitler's view of race and superiority).
I just think that we should be able to make up our own minds... |