harry potter and the half-brained wingnut

Are you joking me?

An article in Salon today covers those who are yet again bemoaning the lack of morals of our collective children.
The culprit, you might ask?
Why, Harry Potter, of course.

And it's not just right-wing Christian nutjobs that are blaming a children's book for robbing kids of the ability to know right from wrong; now the new Pope is getting in on the action.

In a letter to a Bavarian Roman Catholic sociologist, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who is now Pope Benedict XVI) claimed that Harry Potter books "erode Christianity in the soul before it can even grow properly."
This sociologist has an "insightful" (read: b.s.) book entitled Harry Potter: Good or Evil, in which, according to Salon, she argues that "the Potter novels blur the boundaries between good and evil and impair young readers' ability to distinguish between the two. She also asserts that they glorify the world of witches and magicians at the expense of the human world."

Riiight.

Does anyone else see a problem with this? They're children's books. They're not "harmful." Rowling is a fabulous storyteller with fabulous stories.
And that's all they are: stories.
If kids are mistaking them for real life, there's a bigger problem in that child's life than a lack of Christianity or knowledge of good and evil.

Is the religious right really that desperate for a scapegoat that they'll blame fictional children's books?
Honestly, guys.
You can do better than that.