The parent who filed the complaint against the Bible claimed the holy scripture of the Christian faith contains “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide.” – Benjamin Lynch
The Bible has been removed from some schools in Utah because of its “vulgarity and violence” – sparking a debate.
The Davis School District decided the Christian holy book would be kept available at high schools in the area, but removed it from middle and elementary schools.
It comes after the state’s Republican government passed a law in 2022 saying books with “pornographic or indecent” would not be available in schools.
A complaint was first filed with the district in December 2022 and the school district said it had already removed up to eight copies of the King James Bible.
The parent who filed the complaint against the Bible claimed the holy scripture of the Christian faith contains “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation ,fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide.”
Because of all that, the parent, who has not been identified, claimed: “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.”
In a blistering rebuke, newspaper The Salt Lake Tribune wrote in an editorial piece: “The solution to all this is blindingly simple: Remove the book bans. All of them. “Let people decide for themselves and for their families what’s appropriate. For those who want to perpetuate such bans, there’s a bit of cautionary advice from the newest banned book, once you get past the incest and prostitution and such. It’s the verse Matthew 7:1 — “Judge not, that ye not be judged.”
But Republican state lawmaker Ken Ivory argued: “Traditionally, in America, the Bible is best taught, and best understood, in the home, and around the hearth, as a family.”
He had previously dismissed the challenge as “mockery” amid an ongoing cultural argument in the country regarding what books should be allowed in schools.
The controversial decision has been appealed after the ruling came last week.
Primary school father Bob Johnson told CBS he was against the ban.
He said: “I can’t think of what’s in the Bible that you would have to take out of it. It’s not like there [are] pictures in it.” – Mirror, 3 June 2023
› Benjamin Lynch is a news reporter for the Daily Mirror in London.
Note
The Utah school district is not the first in the US to remove the Bible from its shelves. A Texas school district last year pulled the Bible from library shelves after complaints from members of the public opposed to conservatives efforts to ban some books. Last month, students in Kansas requested to have the Bible removed from their school library. – Admin
Utah school district that banned Bible considers removing Book of Mormon too
Filed under: USA | Tagged: book ban, holy bible, pornography, school libraries, US culture wars | Comments Off on Utah primary schools ban Holy Bible for ‘vulgarity and violence’ – Benjamin Lynch
