Books bans plaguing the nation are coming after a new, surprising target: the Bible.
A Utah school district will send the Bible to library purgatory for elementary and middle schools, effective immediately, after concluding its “vulgarity or violence” was inappropriate. High schools seem to have been spared from the book-ban flood and let onto the ark, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
In a spectacular self-own for book-banning crusaders, the holy scripture faced a challenge in December when a parent fed up with books being removed from school libraries raised hell via a request to review the Bible as “one of the most sex-ridden books around.”
It comes after a Texas school district was forced to pull the Bible last year under a new book-banning policy introduced by conservative leaders.
“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the Utah parent wrote in their request. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”
The unnamed parent cited a new Utah law that expels content labeled “pornographic or indecent” from school libraries and classrooms. Attached to their request, the parent included eight pages of passages from the Bible spanning everything from Genesis to Revelation.
“Get this PORN out of our schools,” the parent wrote. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk.”
In the months following the passage of Utah’s new law, the state’s board of education was swamped with hundreds of complaints from parents, and over 80 titles were pulled from the shelves in a mass exodus. Many of the books honed in on themes of race and LGBTQ+ identity, such as Gender Queer and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, both of which have been banned from school libraries.
Christopher Williams, a Davis School District spokesperson, told The Salt Lake Tribune that a review committee found the Good Book “does not contain sensitive material” as defined by the Utah code referenced in the request, but still restricted it to only older students anyway.
Another parent opposing the ban has appealed the committee’s decision, hoping to keep the holy text available to all students, Williams said. If successful, the Bible could be saved from its eternal punishment and make a comeback to the shelves.
Still, Williams confirmed copies of the Bible will immediately part like the Red Sea from seven or eight schools in the district as the school year ends.
