The Canadian publishing news magazine Quill & Quire published the list of their most popular blog entries for the year, including one about how The Golden Compass was banned by the Catholic school board.
More interesting than the article itself are the responses from other readers, some of them non-religions, some of them fairly hard-core believers.
I have no real qualms with religion as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or keep others down, but as a very, VERY lapsed Catholic, I have to say I got a giggle out of the religiosi comparing The Golden Compass to the collected works of David Duke or a handbook on how to be a serial rapist. Likening these particular subjects to a young adult fantasy novel tells you just how deluded some people can be, and how desperately they will fight to enforce their beliefs. (Of even more interest is how the comments on the board progress from the author Philip Pullman being a simple atheist to quoting him on how his books are about killing God.)
Having said that, if it’s a Catholic school with a Catholic library, I can respect that they don’t want certain books in their collection that might undermine their teachings. I don’t agree with it, because I do believe it promotes a general intolerance of all things that aren’t Catholic (or whatever religion is being taught), but then it is their library, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t expect them to stock those kind of titles anyway, because I know they feel threatened by them.
Funnily enough, it was this article that has actually set my mind on reading these books. I’m sure I’m not the only one who came to a banned book this way, and yet those that have such narrow views seem oblivious to the fact that they are only giving such books more publicity.
Hey, Happy New Year !!
Happy New Year to you, bro!
Happy New Year.
I loved your phrase “very lapsed Catholic”, that would be me too. I’m sure my old teachers would feel that some kind of hell awaits me – so the reading of some book shouldn’t add much more fuel to the waiting fire. This story reminds me of a Jehova’s Witness follower Chris and I worked with for years. He used to go off on us at the mention of Harry Potter books or movies. In his mind we were corrupting our children with witchcraft and black magic, – “cool!” I’d say. Of course this only made us want to talk about it more whenever he was around, that and blood transfusions. That’s another story, where would Chris be today without blood transfusions, and this idiot would argue with him about it.
I got a Wii for Christmas, what a riot that thing is. It’s currently corrupting my wife and children, God love them.
Great posts as always – best of luck to you and Katherine in 08.
S:)
Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. I like to think God isn’t looking down at my reading preferences and saying, Well, nuts, that one just got Ian bumped out of the Kingdom.
I’m supportive of religious people because I think it’s great to see people believing passionately in something (as a struggling writer working for success in the publishing industry, I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I wasn’t). On the other hand, I really don’t dig those religious that keep people down or hurt them, or religious that are really about segregating people from others because they don’t feel the same way. Which, I realize, accounts for a lot of religious out there. :)
Funny story about the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Back when I worked at CNIB, there was a young boy from somewhere in the Prairies who was being used as the face for the new Digital Library and Children’s Discovery Portal. He was the one they showed in newspapers using it, promoting it, etc.
Anyway, one of the big corporate sponsors of the Digital Library/CDP was Microsoft, and one year Bill Gates actually came up here for some reason or another. So the CNIB trucked the kid out again for the photo op, they have him there with Bill Gates playing with the CDP, and as a gift Mr. Gates presents the kid with the latest Harry Potter book in audio format (I can’t remember which HP book it was, number five or six). The kid then tells Mr. Gates, very politely, that he’s not allowed to read Harry Potter because he’s Jehovah’s Witness and his parents say Harry Potter is bad.
I wasn’t actually there for the event, but the story was passed along by everyone who was there that day. It’s like something out of a movie and never fails to make me giggle.