Saturday, April 22, 2006

Gwinnett County GA Missionary Mom Battles the Evil of Harry Potter

John Sugg writes in The Gwinnett Daily Post "‘Potter’ fight reflects religion’s growing role in public debate" where he perhaps gives Laura Mallory more credit than she deserves in her efforts to remove the Harry Potter series from the libraries of Gwinnett County Public Schools. Gwinnett is the largest school system in Georgia. The pace of growth in this suburb of Atlanta is dreadfully fast. I also seem to recall this county, or perhaps one area there, yielding one of the top Bu$h voting percentages from 2004. John Sugg is a smart man and a wonerful writer that I have often enjoyed.

I'd like to add is that many of Ms. Mallory's arguments seem to come straight from Beverly LaHayes's Concerned Women for America effort. This massive organization, and the varied branches of CWFA, appears rather paranoid and often radically wrong. Mrs. LaHaye is of course the wife of Tim LaHaye who has been a part of the “Left Behind” series, perhaps the nastiest wingnut religion fodder of all time. As for Ms. Mallory having courage, I'm not so sure. Perhaps she wants to establish some street cred in the gang of wingnut warriors? I also expect the GOP's Mighty Wurlitzer has helped provide the poll numbers you cited where many Americans feel religion is being slighted.

Don't cut any of these shills, even if they are perhaps "courageous" or simply being used, too much slack Mr. Sugg. If they truly want to fight in their made up "culture war" then let's make them retreat at least a little bloodied. Peace ... or War!