Banned in Oshkosh: 'The Golden Compass' booksAppleton Post-Crescent: Dec 7, 2007 by Amanda M. Wimmer
OSHKOSH -- At least one area school has temporarily pulled the novel "The Golden Compass" from its library shelves over concerns about what critics call its "anti-Christian message."
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Many religious groups, including the New York-based Catholic League, have protested the film and the books as denigrating Christianity and promoting a stealth atheistic campaign to unsuspecting children and their families.
Parents decry reading of controversial book to Shallowater third-graders
Group presses for school library ban of 'The Golden Compass,' authored by atheist and now a movie
Lubbock Online: Dec 8, 2007 Story last updated at 4:36 a.m. Friday, December 7, 2007 by Bob Wilson, Avalanche-Journal
A group of parents is angry that a third-grade teacher read a controversial book authored by a self-described atheist to students at Shallowater Intermediate School.
The parents want "The Golden Compass" banned from the libraries at the intermediate school and Shallowater Middle School. They also do not want the book to be read in class again, said Carrie Williams, whose daughter is in the third-grade class. READ ON
Group presses for school library ban of 'The Golden Compass,' authored by atheist and now a movie
Lubbock Online: Dec 8, 2007 Story last updated at 4:36 a.m. Friday, December 7, 2007 by Bob Wilson, Avalanche-Journal
A group of parents is angry that a third-grade teacher read a controversial book authored by a self-described atheist to students at Shallowater Intermediate School.
The parents want "The Golden Compass" banned from the libraries at the intermediate school and Shallowater Middle School. They also do not want the book to be read in class again, said Carrie Williams, whose daughter is in the third-grade class. READ ON
A QUESTION OF DIRECTION
At debut, 'Golden Compass' sets course for controversy
Star-Ledger: Dec 7, 2007 by Judy Peet
Even for Hollywood, where logic is not a prime factor, it is an oddity: an attempted film boycott based not on what's in a movie, but what might be in the sequel. The target is "The Golden Compass," a lavish, $180 million children's fantasy film opening nationwide today.
. . . . .
The conservative watchdog Catholic League and the evangelical-activist group Focus on the Family both loudly urge parents to boycott the movie and ban the books. The response among New Jersey Catholics has been muted, but all five dioceses did release advisories suggesting parents know what is in the books before allowing children to see the movie.
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"The Golden Compass" merchandise machine is not affected by the controversy. There are deluxe book sets, a $38 board game -- already sold out at FAO Schwarz -- and Sego is producing a whole line of video games. There are action figures, play sets, vehicles and plush toys, a particularly lucrative market because of the talking animals in the movie.
There is also an active anti-Golden Compass market. Several conservative authors, including Catholic League board member Dinesh D'Souza, are hawking books debunking Pullman and the Catholic League has sold at least 25,000 brochures entitled "The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked," at $5 each.
To date, the campaign against "The Golden Compass" has produced few results. Newly reissued, the trilogy is on several bestseller lists and early buzz on the movie is very good. READ ON
At debut, 'Golden Compass' sets course for controversy
Star-Ledger: Dec 7, 2007 by Judy Peet
Even for Hollywood, where logic is not a prime factor, it is an oddity: an attempted film boycott based not on what's in a movie, but what might be in the sequel. The target is "The Golden Compass," a lavish, $180 million children's fantasy film opening nationwide today.
. . . . .
The conservative watchdog Catholic League and the evangelical-activist group Focus on the Family both loudly urge parents to boycott the movie and ban the books. The response among New Jersey Catholics has been muted, but all five dioceses did release advisories suggesting parents know what is in the books before allowing children to see the movie.
. . . . .
"The Golden Compass" merchandise machine is not affected by the controversy. There are deluxe book sets, a $38 board game -- already sold out at FAO Schwarz -- and Sego is producing a whole line of video games. There are action figures, play sets, vehicles and plush toys, a particularly lucrative market because of the talking animals in the movie.
There is also an active anti-Golden Compass market. Several conservative authors, including Catholic League board member Dinesh D'Souza, are hawking books debunking Pullman and the Catholic League has sold at least 25,000 brochures entitled "The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked," at $5 each.
To date, the campaign against "The Golden Compass" has produced few results. Newly reissued, the trilogy is on several bestseller lists and early buzz on the movie is very good. READ ON
Profile: The devil in Philip Pullman
Telegraph.co.UK: Nov 30, 2007
. . . . . .
In the eyes of the Catholic League, the 61-year-old author, a humanist and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, is nothing less than the Antichrist, a militant atheist, and a heretic in the mould of the poets John Milton and William Blake.
The league wants the film banned or, at the very least boycotted, because it considers the trilogy's climax, with Pullman's cruel and intolerant God-figure being destroyed, blasphemous. One school board in Canada has ordered The Golden Compass (published in Britain as Northern Lights) to be removed from school shelves and others are said to be considering following suit.
In this country, the Roman Catholic church has remained diplomatically silent, though the Catholic Herald has called His Dark Materials "the stuff of nightmares... worthy of the bonfire".
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Surprisingly, he has won support from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has suggested that His Dark Materials even be taught as part of religious education in schools. READ ON
In the eyes of the Catholic League, the 61-year-old author, a humanist and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, is nothing less than the Antichrist, a militant atheist, and a heretic in the mould of the poets John Milton and William Blake.
The league wants the film banned or, at the very least boycotted, because it considers the trilogy's climax, with Pullman's cruel and intolerant God-figure being destroyed, blasphemous. One school board in Canada has ordered The Golden Compass (published in Britain as Northern Lights) to be removed from school shelves and others are said to be considering following suit.
In this country, the Roman Catholic church has remained diplomatically silent, though the Catholic Herald has called His Dark Materials "the stuff of nightmares... worthy of the bonfire".
. . . . .
Surprisingly, he has won support from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has suggested that His Dark Materials even be taught as part of religious education in schools. READ ON
'Golden Compass' loses its religion
LA Times: Dec 8, 2007 – Editorial
Appeasing narrow-minded religious groups in the film adaptation does a disservice to great fiction.
. . . . .
So, hoping not to offend sensitive religious moviegoers, New Line excised explicit references to the church in its film version of "The Golden Compass" in favor of a vaguer, more hazily defined threat. Some religious groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have tepidly endorsed the film on the grounds that most who see it "will scarcely be aware of religious connotations." But others, such as William Donohue's Catholic League and James Dobson's Focus on the Family, persist in warning parents that Hollywood is out to poison children's minds. Many Pullman fans are also aghast, but for the opposite reason: They want elements of the book that question organized religion to stay in. READ ON
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