HARRY POTTER, THE WORK OF THE DEVIL?

On November 14, 2002, Reverend Doug Taylor of “The Jesus Party” organized a protest party at The Ramada Inn in Lewiston, Maine.  The Bible preacher stood on a stage in front of media, preachers, and pastors cutting up some of the Harry Potter series to protest its contents.  “I feel like I’m in the cutting mood tonight,” he said, “I will stop when everybody else says I’m right.”

            Throwing a Harry Potter book, Taylor said, “You get involved in this, it’s gonna make you dirty.”  The preacher went rampaging on, saying that the books were full of witchcraft, and pagan religion.  “If this nation goes to hell, then it deserves to go to hell,” he also said.  He invited Pastors onto the stage to help him rip, and cut up the books.  While ripping one of them, he said, “It’s no secret that I enjoy what I’m doing right now.”  Among his other words that night were, “I wanted to burn the books, because the bible gives me the authority to burn magic books.  You can burn literature. It’s not censorship.”

            With that said, let me now speak my mind.  I find cutting, ripping, or wanting to burn books absurd, to say the least.  I am an avid reader, writer, and editor, and although I’m not an extreme Harry Potter fan, I must support them.  I support reading, learning, and education.  This is the base of parental skills.  This is the base of human intelligence!  I am outraged by the actions of “The Jesus Party”, and all involved.  Rev. Douglas Taylor said that he is not boring.  Well, that’s a shock.  Of course you are not boring, Reverend.  You are cutting, and ripping up a FICTION novel to protest its contents.  This is a book from the author’s imagination, and a brilliant one might I add.  Imaginations just like Stephen King’s, Orson Wells’, John Steinbeck’s, George Orwell’s, or Mark Twain’s…I think you get the point.  Where will you draw the line?  Will this end up like the story of Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury where we exist in a world in which independent thoughts, and ideas are forbidden?  A world such as this is made up of mere zombies, mindlessly following a so-called leader.  This, oddly enough, sounds like what you are shooting for when you said, “I will stop when everybody else says they’re wrong, and I’m right.”  Yeah, that’s it.  We’ll just listen to you because you are a supposed “man of God”. You’ve got the wrong group of people for this one, Taylor.  The people of Maine are not ignorant, nor are they going to follow someone who displays such brainless acts.  The people of Maine know great literature when they read it, and they’re not going to sit back and let someone destroy it.  They will protect their children from you, and your Jesus Party’s frightening endeavor.  No, Reverend, you are not boring.  The only thing you are accomplishing from this attempt is bad attention to you and your churches, and great attention for well-written literature.  You are a man that brings forth subtle evil, the worst of them all.  I only have one question for you, Taylor.  How would you feel if I ripped up a Bible in a senseless protest?

COPYRIGHT 2002 NICOLE ALLARD