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It seems to me the issue is whether or not presenting "good magic" (which is basically how Wicca is presented) is okay as long as it's clearly fantasy. When a story is presented about murder or other things that are obviously evil, it is presented within the story/movie as something evil. When you watch a movie about a murder mystery, the story is about how to catch the bad guys, and murder is presented as a bad thing that must be punished and that also often leads to horrible consequences.

The problem here is that what we see as "clearly fantasy" and what the children see as "clearly fantasy", unfortunately, the fundamentalists don't see as "clearly fantasy".

The issue with Harry Potter is that something that many people consider "bad" is presented as something good, positive, heroic and glamorous. So then the question is whether or not it is so clearly fantasy that children will not be tempted.

No, the morals are the same. The methodology is different, but the resulting morals are the same.

As someone who grew up loving fantasy, sci-fi and stories about magic, I have to say that there is a danger in this sort of thing. It can become a temptation for children--it's very glamorous and exciting, and could possibly make it more difficult for a child to resist being led into Wicca, particularly since in our society we are bombarded with this idea that Wicca is just like any other religion.

Of course. That's why the Fundamentalists are the only ones getting bent out of shape over it. To many children, there's nothing "glamourous" or "exciting" about the Bible. There's no personal gratification in the Bible, which turns a lot of children off. Plus the fact that it's just too damn long and full of confusing words in middle-English, and the end result is you leave children wanting something easier and nicer to absorb.

I never was tempted into Wiccan practices, but I also never knew anyone who practiced it, nor was I ever exposed to anything like that in "real life." But I can imagine that if I had known anyone who practiced it when I was a kid I would have been more tempted by it just because of the things I had read that made it seem good, attractive and exciting.

I knew of someone in high school that was "tempted" into Wiccan practices. Probably one of the nicest girls I've ever met, too. Sure, she was gothic, and garnered a lot of weird looks from other people, and even got accused of being a "satanist" a few times by some of the rather insecure kids at that school. She also had a 4.0 GPA. I never saw her do anything "wrong"; she stayed off of drugs, didn't perform gratuitous sexual activities, didn't spend her time chanting "satanic" verses, and didn't make anyone's life miserable.

I think it also can introduce some confusion about right and wrong for children, because here is something that their church or parents might denounce, and yet it's being presented in a movie as something wonderful and good. Even though it's fantasy, it still has a message to convey.

...and apparently the only people getting that message are the Fundamentalists. As usual.

And no, I haven't read Harry Potter either, but it is true, is it not, that Harry is being taught to be a wizard? This is something that neither Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, nor Snow White, nor any of those main protagonists in classic fairy tales and fantasies ever did.

I suppose you've never read The Once and Future King, eh?