Mother may take Harry Potter battle to court

A Georgia mother of three may take her fight to banish Harry Potter books from schools to the courts after the state's board of education voted to keep the wizard series on library shelves.

The vote, on Thursday, upholds a previous decision by the Gwinnett County school board to deny Laura Mallory's request to eliminate J.K. Rowling's bestselling novels from schools.

The mother of three says the books instruct children in witchcraft.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2006 ... otter.html

Where can I get the copies of these books that actually teach witchcraft? I wanna blow stuff up!

It tells them exactly how to ride a broom, how to mix potions (it forgets the minor detail of what ingredients though), transmogrification (which Calvin knew how to do years before Harry Potter)...

People are stupid.

I can't believe that we live in the 21st Century and people are still fucking going nuts over witchcraft scares.

What is wrong with these people?

Not enough training in how to think and reason.

The Dungeon Masters Guide actually does a MUCH better job of this.

Except for the broom riding.

Methinks this woman would pitch a fit if she ever saw AD&D.

...which totally makes me want to send her a copy

I know someone who grandmother destroyed her dad's collection of Dungeons & Dragons manuals because it taught witchcraft, all were leather bound and worth a ridiculous amount of money.

True d'at.

Friggin A.

D&D rocks. Period

I started playing in 1984, and still enjoy it. And I'm still waiting to develop mind powers or magical (magickal? ) abilities

When I was kid, Mom refused to let me play D&D because it lead kids to wickedness and eventual suicide. I wonder what the ratio is between Christians who have committed suicide, and the proportional number of D&D players who have?

My grandmother was pretty adamant about me not playing it - there were a lot of news reports and stuff in the mid-eighties about it being bad.

So, I just didn't tell her I was playing it. Yeah, I'm a rebel and I'll never ever be any good.

It's probably about the same ratio wise, both of which would probably be fairly in tune with suicide statistics as a whole

The problem here is that people take a far too narrow view of the danger role-playing games pose to our children. That pamphlett betrays the author's small-minded thinking - he was writing from the religious perspective, thus only considered spiritual risk.

What about all the other games?!?!?!

The James Bond roleplaying game - who cares about the risk that our kids will 'act out' and do spy missions?

The Godlike WW2 Super-hero game - who'se worrying about our kids getting dressed in historical uniforms and storming beaches?

Won't someone think of the children??!?!?!?

<faints>

Our DM was my church's minister. He was awesome.

Unfortunately he was eventually asked to leave the church, I think because he dared to use the word "penis" during a sermon.

Our church had a lot of old people in it.

I agree.

I never played D&D and never knew anyone who did for a long, long time. and now I like to look down at them as nerds hee hee.

I remember someone complainig aout Harry Potter in England because the complainer was a witch and said Harry rides his broomstick the wrong way (which is the common depiction but wrong apparently, it needs to have the straw part up front if you really want to fly).

Given that 75% of the US self-identifies as Christians, I would have to say, the vast, vast vast majority of them do not think D&D is evil, or Harry Potter. They buy Potter books and movies and ignore D&D, like everyone else

Really unknowable.

If 70-75% of the nation is Christian, then almost by definition they are likely to be very close to the national average. It be almost like calculating the number of drivers who commit suicide. (of course, people often say christians when they mean conservative, usually southern, evangelicals)

D&D players being a relatively small subgroup more likely consisting of certain characteristics could possibly be higher (or lower) than that level. They are more likely to boys of a certain age range, I would imagine, and thus that would skew things much more than the broader group of Christians (or any large group) They porbably are above average in intelligence, possibly below average in social skills as a whole, more imaginiative etc.. (also there would be a big overlap between D&D players and Christian people, being that many if not most D&D players would likely be Christians).

There is a tendency on some people's parts to equate Christian with a Fundamentalist Christian or an Evangelical Christian. In my reckoning, all believers in Jesus as the Christ and as divine are Christian, which is why it bristled me a tad when someone (you, I think) when meaning to write Catholic and Protestant wrote Catholic and Christian. Catholics are Christians, as are Protestants.

[Edited to add]

Which is why it is weird to say that Christians have a problem with D&D. Every single person but one who I played D&D with was either a Catholic or some form of protestant. The one was an Atheist.

I knew only one Wiccan personally and she roller-skated.

I didn't claim to know it for a fact, I was making an educated guess based around common sense.

Common sense. Which works for me. Common!

Yeah but common sense says to me a group large enough to be 75% of the population will likely skew to the norm, whereas a group that is, what 1% if the population and likely atypical, will likely not.