Utah bible ban: district bans Bible in elementary and middle schools 'due to vulgarity or violence' - ABC7 New York
By: ABCNY (ABC New York)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
SALT LAKE CITY -- The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children.
And the Book of Mormon could be next.
The 72,000-student Davis School District north of Salt Lake City removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools while keeping it in high schools after a committee reviewed the scripture in response to a parental complaint. The district has removed other titles, including Sherman Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" and John Green's "Looking for Alaska," following a 2022 state law requiring districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes "sensitive material."
On Friday, a complaint was submitted about the signature scripture of the predominant faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church. District spokesperson Chris Williams confirmed that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but would not say what reasons were listed. He also would not say whether it was from the same person who complained about the Bible, citing a school board privacy policy.
Representatives for the church declined to comment on the challenge. Members of the faith also read the Bible.
Williams said the district doesn't differentiate between requests to review books and doesn't consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee made up of teachers, parents and administrators in the largely conservative community. The committee published its decision in an online database of review requests and did not elaborate on its reasoning or which passages of the Bible it found overly violent or vulgar.
The decision comes as conservative parent activists, including state-based chapters of the group Parents United, descend on school boards and statehouses throughout the United States, sowing alarm about how sex and violence are talked about in schools.
It's unknown, however, who made the request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or if they are affiliated with any larger group because of the district's privacy policy.
A copy of the complaint obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through a public records request shows that the parent noted the Bible contains instances of incest, prostitution and rape. The complaint derided a "bad faith process" and said the district was "ceding our children's education, First Amendment Rights, and library access" to Parents United.
"Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible," the parent's complaint, dated Dec. 11, said. It later went on to add, "You'll no doubt find that the Bible (under state law) has 'no serious values for minors' because it's pornographic by our new definition."
The review committee determined the Bible didn't qualify under Utah's definition of what's pornographic or indecent, which is why it remains in high schools, Williams said. The committee can make its own decisions under the new 2022 state law and has applied different standards based on students' ages in response to multiple challenges, he said.
An unnamed party filed an appeal on Wednesday.
The Bible has long found itself on the American Library Association's list of most challenged books and was temporarily pulled off shelves last year in school districts in Texas and Missouri.
Concerns about new policies potentially ensnaring the Bible have routinely arisen in statehouses during debates over efforts to expand book banning procedures. That includes Arkansas - one of the states that enacted a law this year that would subject librarians to criminal penalties for providing "harmful" materials to minors, and creates a new process for the public to request materials be relocated in libraries.
"I don't want people to be able to say, 'I don't want the Bible in the library," Arkansas Democratic state Sen. Linda Chesterfield said during a hearing.
Parents who have pushed for more say in their children's education and the curriculum and materials available in schools have argued that they should control how their children are taught about matters like gender, sexuality and race.
EveryLibrary, a national political action committee, told The Associated Press last month it was tracking at least 121 different proposals introduced in legislatures this year targeting libraries, librarians, educators and access to materials. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years, according to the American Library Association.
"If folks are outraged about the Bible being banned, they should be outraged about all the books that are being censored in our public schools," said Kasey Meehan, who directs the Freedom to Read program at the writers' organization PEN America.
___ Associated Press reporter Andrew DeMillo contributed from Little Rock, Ark.
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Hopefully, a lawsuit will be filed in Florida, looking forward to seeing one with the same result.
incest, pedophilia, adultery, polygamy, race mixing, slavery, ritual sacrifice, infanticide, genocide, slavery, mass murder by god...
it's fun watching hypocritical conservative xtians shoot themselves in the feet. you can't make this shit up...
And the Book of Mormon may be next on the chopping block.
a con artist talking to a rock in a top hat just doesn't stack up against all the competitors miracles...
One of my favorites.
“You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them.”
According to them, Lot's daughters got Daddy drunk and had sex with him.
And they were the good girls.
I forgot where I buried those gold plates, maybe an angel took them...
... early xtian sex ed.
the lord told me that you should take a mortgage out on your farm and give me the money so I can publish this book I wrote... ...oh, and while you're at the bank, I'll be banging your wife...
a rock in a top hat
4x4 rock crawling at Moab is the only good thing about Utah.
I have also enjoyed skiing the trails at Alta.
What's good for the goose...
Exactly, sandy.
yeah, it's a real shame that everything they want off the bookshelves is contained in the bible.
Met Heinlein and he was a god to all free thinkers.
Met Hunter Thompson and am still not sure what he was. Ask Dep.
Heinlein is still a God.
Grew up reading Heinlein.
Heinlein opened my eyes to many things.
Was once invited in for breakfast in his boyhood home.
Years earlier met him at a JPL event.
Even the top NASA/DARPA scientists were in awe of RAH!
Somebody did not think ahead before they started wanting books banned.
Unintended consequences
Exactly, charger.
some people have real difficulty writing unconstitutional laws that don't come back to bite them in the ass.
They better hide the pens before they draw themselves a path to prison.
I was thinking the same thing
As the saying goes, turnabout is fair play.
I hope that we see more people do what was done in Utah.
It is going to get more interesting by the day.
Censorship for thee, but not for me.
Yeah, that seems to be the message from the book banners.
meh, just more of the do as I say not as I do religious bullshit...
A church group has demanded some books from a library in the county north of us be removed "for review". They are getting ripped to pieces on Facebook. Maybe other groups should demand that the Bible be removed similarly.
I agree, it should happen in every state that is pushing this book ban BS.
Sandy, There used to be a retired old Colonel in that county who would have been all over this. They need somebody like him again.
I remember his letters to the editor. He was an intelligent, eloquent, thoughtful man. Agree, we could use somebody like him. Lots of somebodies like him.
Eureka! (There it is!) These conservatives are control freaks.
I support this removal. If they want to read the bible: Go home. Or, go to a church!
no different from abortion
It is time to take out the 'garbage': Start with the smoke and mirrors conservatives are using to sustain control of our national narrative and culture. Take it down!
Welcome to the EvilBible.com website.
This website is designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible. For far too long priests and preachers have completely ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes. The so called God of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children. I have included references to the Biblical passages, so grab your Bible and follow along.
Noah fucked his klids. Apparently conservative christians think that is okay
their rule book always flies out the window for a cause they deem worthy...
Not only was that ok, he was the model of morality and, according to God, the most moral man on Earth.
Same with Lot, who offered to turn over his virgin daughters to be gang-raped, and later had sex with them himself.
Which passage says that?
Genesis 6:11–9:19
Perhaps that means most moral relative to that time and that generation, not of all time.
You're a Christian. You haven't read it?
Why do you think that, I'm a lifelong agnostic atheist?
he heard good things...
family quality control...
... with a big discount. bogo...
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