NewsRescue
After a parent protested the school’s decision to remove the Bible due to its sexual and violent content, Utah’s Davis School District is evaluating whether to return it to library shelves, district spokesperson Christopher Williams told the Salt Lake Tribune in an email earlier this week.
In March, a district-appointed committee reviewing parent concerns ruled that the religious text should be allowed in high schools but removed from primary and middle schools owing to “vulgarity or violence.”
According to Williams, as many as eight elementary and middle-school districts who hold copies of the book will have them removed when the school year comes to a close.
A parent first challenged the Bible’s presence in school libraries in December, expressing dissatisfaction with the number of books being removed from libraries based on a recent state law that defined works as having “no serious value for minors” if their content included any “description or depiction of illicit sex or sexual immorality.”
Sarcastically “thanking” the state for “making the bad faith process [of banning books] so much easier and way more efficient,” they pointed out that Davis School District had “left off one of the most sex-ridden books around.” In their complaint, the parent submitted an eight-page list of Bible passages that they said were obscene, stressing examples of “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide.”
“If the books that have already been banned are any indication for far lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk,” the parent snarled, imploring the district to “get this PORN out of our schools!”
While Williams said that a district committee concluded the Bible “does not contain sensitive material” in accordance with the new rule, he also explained that a decision had been taken to limit its availability to high school students regardless. A parent has filed an appeal, seeking that the book be made available to people of all ages.
The Davis School District Board of Education has formed a three-person committee to investigate both the original complaint and the appeal. Other religious literature, such as the Torah, Quran, and Book of Mormon, are still available to people of all ages.
Following a nationwide outcry over seemingly pornographic books and graphic novels explicitly discussing LGBTQ lifestyles, as well as the promotion of Critical Race Theory and other racially sensitive material, parents in school districts across the United States have taken steps to remove certain books from their libraries.
