POTTER BOOKS COVER MORE THAN RELIGION.

Byline: SHARON KAPLAN

I mean no disrespect, but aren't we past the controversy about the Harry Potter series being the work of the devil?

Apparently not.

At a Monday press conference at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre to launch J.K. Rowling's U.S. tour promoting her seventh and last book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," religion once again took center stage. Four questions of the paltry eight or 10 asked during the 20-minute interview session seemed to focus on the subject.

The first question came from a reporter for a religious publication who took her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apologize to Rowling for the few (whom Rowling described as the "lunatic religious whackos") who've dogged her since the first Harry Potter book was printed.

The reporter reiterated that many Christians adore Rowling's books -- which is great. That's a far different viewpoint than the hundreds of reports over the years of Harry Potter book bans, anti-Potter church sermons, and groups who've actually pitched copies on to bonfires for their so-called anti-Christian themes. I applaud this reporter for speaking her mind and am grateful for people like her in the world.

But more questions continued to come:

Was Rowling aware of the Catholic League's protest of Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass"? Did she have any thoughts about how that mirrored her own experience with religious groups?

Why did she start "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" with a passage from American Quaker William Penn's "More Fruits of Solitude"?

Why did she choose specific scriptural quotations to appear on tombstones found in the "Goderick's Hollow" chapter, where Harry visits his parents' resting place?

And does Harry's mentor -- Professor Dumbledore, who dies in the sixth book -- spend eternity in train-station limbo, beating himself up over his own past and the things he put Harry through? (No, Rowling said, he will have a happy afterlife. Thank God).

Understandably, people want to see their world views played out in the books they read, shows they watch and movies they see. But what puzzles me is the media's obsession with this issue.

Here, sitting before you, you have the richest and nearly the most popular woman in all of Christendom; a woman who has never been able to speak about her books with any measure of abandon before because of the mysteries that were yet to be revealed; a woman whose works captured the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of young and old on nearly every continent. Do you have to bring up that old chestnut, the one she keeps getting asked and keeps answering with the same responses?

Why can't we move past this? I'm bored with it already, and if I am, then Rowling must be bored to sobs.

Indeed, the Harry Potter books cover lots of other important issues and themes -- hate, friendship and the power of love -- but no one seems to care about those things. The media seem to care about only one issue: Is there God in Harry's world?

Are we not, as a culture, able to add anything else to the human discourse?

Rowling admitted at the press conference that the Potter series is a quintessentially British story, so naturally there would be religious symbolism from her own background. It was not necessarily done as a calculated theme or allusion, though the passages and quotations did guide her. The book, as she wrote it, is neither pro-Christianity nor against. "I'm conflicted," she said.

Rowling must have the patience of Job to continue answering these tired queries and reminding the public that her book is also about the ramifications of bigotry and intolerance. The series is about how hatred can destroy people, how a single person's choices can have lasting effects. She's said it before, but no one takes the bait.

On Monday, Rowling reminded the assembled media again about those subjects, to which the follow-up question was -- well, there wasn't one. No one cared. Intolerance, bigotry and hate apparently aren't worth discussing. Let's get back to the religion thing, shall we?

The secrets of Harry Potter are out, so Rowling can be as forthcoming as she wants to be with information about the story. But no one will let her, and that's a real shame.

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no caption (J.K. Rowling)