Harry Potter and the Freedom of Religion -- longish

[annemehr]

Okay, I'll bite.  Naturally, I buy HP for *my* children and read them
to them as requested (even though they're perfectly capable of reading
HP to themselves and do so).  But --

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "alshainofthenorth"
<alshainofthenorth at y...> wrote:

<snip>
> Next day there was another story with comments from a child 
> psychologist, a lawyer from the central school administration and a 
> Lutheran bishop:
> http://www.expressen.se/index.jsp?a=113473
> 
> Translation of the relevant parts:
<snip>
> Lawyer: "A private school like this has to live up to the same 
> criteria of comprehensiveness and objectivity as a municipal school. 
> The value base as well as the goals should be the same.... I can 
> imagine that there are Potter books in the municipal school, and then 
> they should be allowed in the private school as well." 
<snip>

Okay, *this* statement is worse than the original banning of the
books.  Surely one of the main points of a private religious school is
that the "value base" of the municipal school is not *quite* what the
parents had in mind?

<snip>
> And that was just the background. The main reason why I'm posting at 
> all comes here: Considering that freedom to exercise your religion is 
> one of the basic rights in a democratic society, does anyone think 
> that Expressen went too far in making an issue of this?
<snip>

> Does it say explicitly somewhere that it's a basic human right to 
> have Potter books in your school library? A principal is within his 
> or her rights to make even stupid decisions concerning the running of 
> their school (I'm sure that everyone has stories to tell about 
> principals making bad decisions).

You are probably right.  It is a stupid decision that probably won't
hurt anyone.  I'm sure any of those children who wants to read HP will
be able to do so, even if the newspaper hadn't bought them copies. 
Actually, of all the books missing from that library, either because
the principal doesn't agree with them or because they can't afford to
buy every book, the HP ones will be the easiest for the children to
get elsewhere.

> At least one of the arguments was 
> sound: Some children get nightmares from reading Harry Potter; and 
> she did make this decision in good faith.

Actually, I don't think she made the decision in good faith, if the
original Leaky Cauldron linked article was accurate, because she's
quoted as saying she hadn't actually read any of the books, she'd only
thumbed through some of the pages.  And I used to have nightmares
about the drain in the bathroom sink (honest!), but I've never heard
of an HP book giving anyone nightmares.

I guess what I think is it's all right for a principal to try to have
appropriate books in the school library, especially if it's a
specialised school (such as a religious one) which is supposed to be
based on certain values.  The parents are of course always free to
broaden their own children's reading horizons.  However, I think this
particular principal did not make a very thoughtful decision at all.

Annemehr
a Catholic with children in a Catholic school