A school district serving 74,000 children in Utah has banned the Bible in response to a liberal parent’s efforts to subvert legislation aimed at keeping inappropriate books out of schools.
“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,” asserted the anonymous parent in an eight-page complaint to the Davis School District.
A district review committee upheld the complaint, deciding it would “retain the book in school library circulation only at the high school level based on age appropriateness due to vulgarity or violence” – despite the parent openly admitting that his complaint was made in “bad faith”.
“I thank the Utah Legislature and Utah Parents United for making this bad faith process so much easier and way more efficient,” they wrote, referring to the conservative lawmakers and parents who pioneered news legislation allowing parents to challenge “pornographic” materials.
The Bible ban is being appealed to a full panel of the Board of Education – but it may not have much practical effect either way.
Davis School District spokesman Christopher Williams says fewer than ten school libraries even stocked a Bible, and that it does not feature in the curriculum, despite Utah’s status as a stronghold of Mormon Christianity. A ban on the Book of Mormon is also under consideration.