Devout or Just Stupid?

This one made me laugh out loud. The original story was pretty familiar - another case of a supposedly devout Christian protesting kids reading the Harry Potter books. The original article stated that a British teaching assistant refused to let a child in her class read one of the Harry Potter books, was disciplined by the school, and resigned from her position. I considered adding the story as an update to my last Harry Potter entry, but decided that there wasn't much too it besides the usual self-righteous censorship.

Well, I was wrong. The assistant turned around and sued the school for religious discrimination, claiming that it was unreasonable for the school to discipline her because of her beliefs. And what were those belief, you ask? Why, she was frightened of the spells in the Harry Potter book!

Teaching Assistant Quits in Fear of Potter Spell

Yup, that's right kids. As a practicing ritual magician all I have to do is wave my wand and vibrate AVADA KEDAVRA in order to kill you! In fact, here's my entire Grimoire detailing the extent of my arcane and esoteric skill and knowledge. Fear my awesome power!

You know, I'm not sure what I find more pathetic about this story - that this idiot actually believed that Harry Potter had anything to do with real magick, or that her motivation had nothing to do with faith or morality and everything to do with cowardice. Wouldn't an actual devout Christian believe that her God is powerful enough to keep her safe from a ten year old mumbling imaginary curses? Or even real curses?

But hey, at least she provided me with a laugh.

UPDATE: (June 12th) The legal tribunal hearing the case didn't take very long to rule against this idiot.

'I don't do witchcraft' teacher loses tribunal

I'm still surprised that she believed she had any chance whatsoever of winning, given that the Wicca religion has absolutely nothing to do with the Harry Potter series and that if the Potter books were found to be discriminatory the same logic would apply to the entire fantasy genre. C.S. Lewis has spells in his books, too, and just like in the Potter books, they aren't real spells.