Way to go, Laura Mallory
Really, I salute you, Laura Mallory.
Next installment of mom vs. Potter set for Gwinnett court
Laura Mallory and Harry Potter are to meet in court on Tuesday.
Mallory, whose children attend school in Gwinnett, wants the popular series of books about the fictional boy wizard exorcised from Gwinnett County’s public school libraries.
Laura Mallory took her Harry Potter challenge from the school level in Gwinnett to the state Board of Education late last year.
Mallory is scheduled to appear in Gwinnett Superior Court Tuesday morning to argue the “Potter” stories are harmful and promote witchcraft and the occult to young people. Supporters of the “Potter” books say they encourage children to read and should be available to all students.
Since she launched her anti-Potter crusade in 2005, Mallory has taken her case to administrators at the Loganville elementary school her children attend; to a school appeals committee; to the Gwinnett County Board of Education; and to the Georgia Board of Education. She’s lost at each level.</em>
You might think I’m deriding Mrs. Mallory by posting this. Perish the thought. Not enough people in this country hold beliefs strongly enough to keep fighting for them, despite being rebuffed at each turn:
• April 20, 2006: The Gwinnett County School Board holds a public hearing on the issue; a hearing officer supports the recommendation to keep the books available.• May 11, 2006: Gwinnett School Board votes unanimously to keep the popular book series in school libraries.
• June 2006: Mallory appeals the school board’s decision to the state Board of Education.
• Oct. 3, 2006: State Board of Education hearing officer hears arguments in the appeal.
• Dec. 14, 2006: State Board of Education upholds the Gwinnett school system’s procedure for keeping “Harry Potter” books on the shelves of school libraries.
• Jan. 17, 2007: Laura Mallory requests an appeal of her case to Gwinnett Superior Court.
</em>She hasn’t read the books, she admits, rather, she’s responding to warnings and information she got from fundamentalist Christian sites on the internet. One assumes she has forbidden her children from reading the books, but she feels that her own judgment is somehow better than those of her community, who have repeatedly said that the books should remain on the shelves, not believing her rhetoric that we’re “raising a generation of witches”.
Dear Mrs. Mallory, I truly salute your desire to protect your children from influences you don’t believe in, that you feel could harm your children. That is your role as a parent- one that more parents should emulate.
However, as a citizen, you are a member of a larger family in which ALL the members get to vote- not just you. So now, you’re simply just wasting my money continuing to fight something that you will not win. If you don’t want to live in a county where Harry Potter books are on taxpayer-supported book shelves, then by all means move. Otherwise, learn the rules.
There are a lot of things I don’t like paying for, that I feel have a negative influence on myself and my family. They include optional wars, corporate welfare, and insipid “faith based” bullshit being forced down the throats of people who have sense enough to reject it on a personal level, but who are forced to pay for it anyway.
So I guess, in closing, Mallory? Shut up, and pay back Gwinnett county for the expense you’ve already cost the taxpayers with your nuisance meetings and lawsuits.
