A witchcraft controversy brewing in a North Dakota town forced a local school to cancel a field trip to a screening of the new Harry Potter ( news - web sites ) movie on Friday.
About 100 students from Agassiz Middle School in Fargo were slated to attend the opening day of the widely anticipated movie, " Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ," which revolves around the adventures of a young wizard in a world of nonmagical mortals known as muggles.
All the students, mainly aged between 12 and 15, had parental permission to attend the trip to a local movie house during school hours.
But a few concerned parents and one local radio personality successfully killed the trip after raising concerns about the movie's depiction of witchcraft.
The fact that some consider witchcraft a religion, the protesters said, meant that the school-led trip to the movie theater would constitute a violation of the separation of church and state and possibly lead to legal action.
"It's a little bizarre," said Fargo School Superintendent David Flowers, who supported the field trip. "We believe that we were on firm ground in letting the kids go. But (the school) made the decision ... that they would just as soon not be embroiled in a controversy."
Meanwhile in Memphis at least two Catholic schools said they were keeping the series of "Harry Potter" books by author J.K. Rowling ( news - web sites ) out of their libraries because of the witches and wizardry content.
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" opened on Friday throughout the United States and was widely expected to break box-office records.