A parent in Utah is responding to the Utah State Board of Education’s removal of books from school libraries by requesting that the Bible also be on the chopping block, claiming that it contains just as much sexually suggestive and obscene material as any other book proposed by conservatives for removal, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
In their request, the parent included a list of examples and said the Bible is “one of the most sex-ridden books around” and is asking the school district in Davis County to add the Holy Book to its reviews.
“I thank the Utah Legislature and Utah Parents United for making this bad faith process so much easierand way more efficient,” the parent, who remains unidentified due to privacy reason, wrote in their request. “Now we can all ban books and you don’t even need to read them or be accurate about it. Heck, you don’t even need to see the book! Ceding our children’s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access to a white supremacist hate group like Utah Parents United seems like a wonderful idea for a school district literally under investigation for being racist.”
“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent continued. “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.”
“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.”
The conservative group Utah Parents United, which was cited by the parent in their request, has largely focused their crusade on books containing racial and LGBTQ content.
Last year, Utah legislators signed a bill into law banning any books containing “pornographic or indecent” material from the state’s schools.
Speaking to The Tribune, district spokesperson Christopher Williams said that the parent’s request would be treated equally as all others. “We don’t differentiate between one request and another. We see that as the work that we do,” he said.
“Based on the new Utah law, something is indecent if it includes explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling,” The Tribune’s report stated. “According to state attorneys, material doesn’t have to be “taken as a whole” in those situations or left on the shelf during a review. If there is a scene involving any of those acts, it should be immediately removed.”
Read the full report over at The Salt Lake Tribune.
