The Harry Potter novels face a test in Atlanta-area public schools as a woman who appears to be the PTA mom from hell claims that the purpose of J.K. Rowling's books is to promote witchcraft, the Associated Press reports.
Laura Mallory, a mother of four, told a hearing officer for the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Tuesday that the popular fiction series is an "evil" attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.
Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban Macbeth and Cinderella.
And because it's un-American to tell religious fanatics to stop trying to impose their insanity on the rest of us, the Board is falling back on the "but Harry Potter is innocuous and sweet!" defense:
"There's a mountain of evidence for keeping Harry Potter," [Sweeney] said, adding that the books don't support any particular religion but present instead universal themes of friendship and overcoming adversity.
A photo that ran with the AP story shows Mallory holding up a pamphlet for a summer camp where, apparently, kids can learn witchcraft. So she's proved that witches (or at least wannabe witches) exist; can she scare up some logic to connect it back to the books? Or would that in itself be considered a form of conjuring?