AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE STRAW. Rod Dreher:

"My books are about killing God."

So said Phillip Pullman, author of "The Golden Compass," the movie version of which is soon to be released. One expects that religious parents will keep their children away from the film.

"But why?" the question arises from liberals. "What are you afraid of?"

My children losing God, especially before they have a firm hold on Him, that's what.

There is no attribution, alas, for the quote from liberals.

It never would have occurred to me to ask Dreher why he wouldn't send his kids to see The Golden Compass, or Lake of Fire, or The Bourne Conspiracy or Saw IV or Rin Tin Tin Gets In or anything else. I expect the makers of these and most films would like every man, woman, and child on earth to buy tickets for their movies, and it's up to parents to keep their children away from the ones they don't want them to see, much as it is up to them to deny their kids Twinkies, espresso, lighter fluid, and other legally available products as they see fit.

Why does he think I want his kids to see this movie? Maybe since Beliefnet redesigned his masthead to make the blog look like Bill O'Reilly for anorectics, Dreher has abandoned the idea that free markets are apolitical offenders of his vision of a godly life, and recidivated to a more old-fashioned notion of liberals as fiendish corruptors of youth.

Or else he's just still mad about Dumbledore.