--- title: Pastor Says Parents Should Drown Over Allowing Harry Potter description: Parents are better off drowning themselves than letting their children read Harry Potter, according to Pastor Kevin Swanson. canonical: https://time.com/4106853/harry-potter-dumbledore-pastor/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-10T20:53:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:57.985Z og:title: Pastor Says Parents Should Die Over Allowing Harry Potter og:description: He also thinks 'Frozen' could turn children gay og:url: https://time.com/4106853/harry-potter-dumbledore-pastor/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt852654b9a429b4f6/69887062cd1bbaa7f06fe098/gettyimages-75577808.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Publication Of The Final Installment Of Harry Potter Series og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pastor Says Parents Should Die Over Allowing Harry Potter twitter:description: He also thinks 'Frozen' could turn children gay twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt852654b9a429b4f6/69887062cd1bbaa7f06fe098/gettyimages-75577808.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Pastor Thinks Parents Should Drown Themselves Rather Than Let Their Kids Read _Harry Potter_ > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Harry Potter Could've Attended An American Wizarding School [Watch (HLS stream): Harry Potter Could've Attended An American Wizarding School](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ivWBNS2z.m3u8) (2:05)  _Published 2015-06-10. The_  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Nov 10, 2015 8:53 PM UTC  A Harry Potter fan begins to read the final novel by author J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in 2007. A Harry Potter fan begins to read the final novel by author J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in 2007. Lisa Maree Williams—Getty Images  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Nov 10, 2015 8:53 PM UTC Pastor Kevin Swanson says that parents are better off drowning themselves than letting their children read _Harry Potter._ While speaking at the [National Religious Liberties Conference](https://freedom2015.org/) in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Swanson said that Americans should “repent of _Harry Potter_” and “repent that Dumbledore emerged as a homosexual mentor for Harry Potter.” He works for the Reformation Church of Elizabeth, Colo. Swanson’s issue with the series seems to be a result of author J.K. Rowling’s 2007 announcement that she had always [thought of Dumbledore as gay](http://time.com/3756860/jk-rowling-harry-potter-dumbledore-gay/). He made these statements during an “extended rant” against abortion, homosexuality and “immoral themes in country music,” according to [Right Wing Watch](http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-god-will-judge-america-harry-potters-homosexual-mentor). The pastor went on to say that “it would be better that a millstone be hanged around \[parents’\] neck\[s\] and they be drowned at the bottom of the sea” than allow their kids to be “in homes in which children are raised to be stumbled by the Dumbledores.” Swanson has a history of homophobic remarks. Back in March 2014, he claimed that [watching _Frozen_ would turn children gay](http://time.com/21516/pastor-claims-frozen-will-turn-your-children-gay/). “You wonder sometimes if maybe there’s something very evil happening here. If I was the Devil, what would I do to really foul up an entire social system and do something really, really, really evil to 5- and 6- and 7-year-olds in Christian families around America?…If I was the Devil, I would buy Disney in 1984, that’s what I would have done,” he said. See the full speech below: ## Transcript Harry Potter has scores of fans across the world, the only downside in our American eyes is that most of the cool stuff J. K. Rowling penned happens across the pond. She needs to sort out her priorities. But now, good old America, land of the free, could also be considered home of the wizard. The wizard. Oh yeah. We're serious. Here's some background: Rowling wrote the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in 2001. The book, when mentioned in the Harry Potter series, was written by a fictional character named Newt Scamander. To sum it up, Rowling wrote a book about a book, that a character in her book wrote. Now, there's a movie coming out with the same title and it will follow Schamander and his adventures in New York's secret community of witches and wizards. Collecting the information he used to write the book, Potter would ultimately read in class 70 years later, IMDB. com says. Turn to page 394. This led to a Twitter user asking Rowling if her character Scamander was going to visit a school in New York. She replied no, but he's going to meet people who were educated at name in not New York. Educated, out of school, in America, we have wizards too. Woo. Rowling isn't giving the name of the school, saying if she did, it would give away it's location. But did hint that the name was of immigrant origin and that indigenous magic was important in the founding of the school. Rowling has been known to be as cryptic as Tom Riddle's diary. In October 2014, she tweeted out some nonsense that people on Reddit somehow deciphered to mean Harry returns. Won't say any details now. A week off. No comment. It turns out she was really just teasing us about this upcoming Scamander movie and she's still teasing us it seems. Teasing us as hard as Harry's Uncle Vernon was when he withheld those Hogwarts acceptance letters. Entertainment Weekly took a wand waive at some locations, suggesting the school could be New Orleans, Roanoke New England the Southwest. We'll be on the lookout for more cryptic tweets. Or heck, we'd even take a movie trailer at this point. The movie is due out in 2016. 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