 |
| A Utah parent is demanding that the Bible be banned from school libraries in accordance to a new state law banning pornographic materials in schools. The parent submitted eight pages of Bible verses to back up their claim. |
In all honesty, the parent has a point based upon the law. The Bible is a wonderful book but it is also chock full of sex and extreme violence:
From The Salt Lake City Tribune:
Frustrated by the books being removed from school libraries, a Utah parent says there’s one that hasn’t been challenged yet, but that they believe should be, for being “one of the most sex-ridden books around.”
So they’ve submitted a request for their school district in Davis County to now review the Bible for any inappropriate content.
“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “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 code cited is the Utah law passed in 2022 to ban any books containing “pornographic or indecent” content from Utah schools, both in libraries and in the classroom. It came after outcry from conservative parents groups, who have been pushing to have titles removed.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the parent, who remains unidentified for privacy reasons, submitted their challenge on Dec. 11 along with an eight-page list of passages from the Bible that they found to be offensive and worth reviewing.
. . . “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.”
And apparently the parent did not come to play games. According to the
Tribune:
The eight-page list starts with passages from Genesis that mention sex, alcohol, nudity, rape and incest. A quote from Genesis 19:8 reads: “See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish.”
Genesis 19:35-36 adds: “Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.”
The other citations highlight similar themes, including passages mentioning “whoredom” and “breasts” and “fornication.”
Utah state representative Ken Ivory, who sponsored the law, was not happy at the parent's request. He
called it a stunt and said it would drain the school's resources:
“There was a purpose to the bill and this kind of stuff, it’s very unfortunate,” he said. “There are any number of studies that directly link sexualization and hyper-sexualization with sexual exploitation and abuse. Certainly, those are things we don’t want in schools.”
“For people to minimize that and to make a mockery of it is very sad,” Ivory added.
I think that was the parent's point, Mr. Ivory - to show the inanity of book banning.
According to the Tribune, the request has been given to a committee and the process usually takes 60 days but there may be backlog.
