Stacie the Blasphemer

Just in time for the glut of Holiday Cheer (tm), I am feeling contrary. Not that I don't like Christmas; in fact I have found myself increasingly sentimental as my first Christmas with my little girl approaches. But the usual rounds of Christmas-time focus on "family values" really gets my "shan't" motor running.

I especially don't like the groups that come out with hand-wringing pronouncements (at any time of year) about what children need to be shielded from. Pretty much any time someone says to me "Think of the children!", my knee-jerk reaction is to check out whatever taboo thing I am being advised to avoid. Right now all the fuss over the movie "The Golden Compass", based on the book by Phillip Pullman, is causing such a reaction.

Catholic and other Christian groups are crying foul because of some of the books themes, notably an anti-authoritarian attitude in that fictional universe that is being decried as an Anti-Church stand in this one. Critics are saying that exposing children to such ideas are "dangerous". BIG red flag.

Mind you, these books/films are not saying literally, "God is bad and you should disobey him as soon as possible". They criticize the human power structure surrounding and controlling man's access to the divine. Why exactly is it wrong to look critically at that?

Personally, I find that assertions that the innocence of children must be protected at all costs just tend to infantalize the adults. And anyway, I wouldn't be a very good parent if one book could unhinge all of my teaching about right and wrong, regardless of whether the framework for that right and wrong is rooted in religion or not.

It is getting all to common and casual to treat athiests/agnostics/pagans/whatever as some kind of communicable disease. Honestly, if that were true, I would be thumping a bible right now, due to all the well-meaning souls who have tried to instill a sense of piety in me by any means necessary. I have been subjected to some frontier-justice prostheletyzing in my time. It just won't stick. I refuse to humbly submit to my husband/the church/anybody else's idea of what I should do with my inner life.

And as for the children, I would like a little tiny bit of credit for being a grownup who can make choices for my own family. So, will I let "A" read "The Golden Compass"? I'm going to read it myself first and decide based on my own judgment, not what some hysterical bunch of church ladies think. I don't agree with them on anything else, so I doubt I will withhold any books based on their say so.

In any case, "A" is still learning her ABC's, so I'm off the hook for a bit.

And will I see the movie? I might rent it. I heard it was only "just okay" compared to the book. So I will read the book first to prevent ruining it for myself. This approach worked well for the Narnia series. If I had seen that movie first, I doubt I would have read the books. And that would have been a dirty shame.