Damn you’re tall. At 5’5″ (thanks for the height comparison-clarification, Lauren!), and some-what feminine, without my politics on my clothing or a cocked eyebrow, I do not think I am much of an intimidation, until I speak that is.

We thought about asking for a refund, but we figured we paid the price of a movie ticket and got much more entertainment than a movie. One of the letters to the editor made the same comment as you regarding the Potter books. What a silly thing to harp on, eh?

And I do think many are naive to think music plays a large part in peoples’ actions. During my “rebellious teen years”, I came home from school one day to find that my mom had torn down all of my Marilyn Manson and NIN posters! She thought they were to blame for my attitude of the time.

She should have paid attention to the people I was hanging around!

I hope you got your money back for the falsely-advertised festivities. Maybe they’re just afraid that they can’t get enough support by being up-front and honest. I mean, they’re setting up shop in a major college area…with so much diversity in one location, I can see them in a state of panic. “Oh, what if they won’t come,” they’ll ask each other. I can’t believe they’re still up in arms about Harry Potter. It’s a work of fiction, people (translation: “not true”). I wonder if any of these people ever read The Lord of the Rings books, and might scoff at the comparisons of magic. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the use of Nine Inch Nails. Are humans really naive enough to think that negative and depressing music is to blame for a person’s actions? I listen to depressing music all the time, and I’m a happy guy. They should take these words to heart: “Blame Canada! Blame Canada! Before somebody thinks of blaming us.”

Anyway, I applaud your tenacity. I’m so sorry your words probably fell on deaf ears, though.

Although I’m far from being unbiased, I’m glad a lot of folks have had the chance to read my experiences. In our initial search for more information, we came up with very little and especially couldn’t find a synopsis by an actual (non-Evangelical Christian) participant.

I wanted to talk with the lady further, not just about the abortion scene, but she ended the “intercession” early. The most frightening part was that they were portraying these events as if the root causes were allowing people to make CHOICES for themselves (egad!) and that these choices were greatly informed by the violence in the media.

Never touched were the subjects of this culture’s deep-seated fears of The Other, including sexualities other than the hetero standard, the reasons as to why violence is in the media in the first place, but most importantly for me were the unquestioned patriarchal undertones. After the party scene Kim’s boyfriend never re-entered the picture and Dad was excused due to the demon liquor, while Kim eventually killed herself due to guilt and Mom was acutally relegated as “the nagging wife”.

We were told all societal ills could be solved by accepting Jesus as our personal savior and accepting our sinful condition. No mention was made of the changes in mental paradigms that are necessary for true society-wide improvement.