The use of the Holy Bible by elementary and middle school students
has been banned by a Utah school district in the US after it was
described as being too vulgar or violent.
According to a report from Daily Mail, some parents of these students
grew agitated and demanded that the bible be banned in that part of the
district as it was too vulgar for its readers.
As a result of the pressure from parents of these students, the
officials in the Davis district, a 72,000-student district north of Salt
Lake City have been forced to ban the reading of the bible in the
district.
Before banning the bible in the district, a committee made up of
parents, teachers, and administrators accessed the good book before the
action was taken.
According to the district spokesperson Chris Williams, the Book of
Mormon has also been removed from younger students’ libraries after
someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon to be removed as
well.
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.’
The committee published its decision about the Bible in an online
database of review requests and did not elaborate on its reasoning or
which passages 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 s3x and violence are talked about in schools.
Because of the district’s privacy policy, it´s unknown who made the
request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or if they are
affiliated with any larger group.
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, pr*stitution, and r*pe. 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 s3x-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 p*rnographic 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.
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