Hero Utah Parent Bans Bible. For The Children!

They're banning the Bible and the Book of Mormon may be next.

In 2022, the state of Utah passed a law that more or less allows parents to have any book they want banned from school libraries. Largely, these parents tend to be members of groups like Moms For Liberty or Parents United or just plain old Jesus freaks who are afraid that if their kids find out that LGBTQ people exist they will ... honestly, is anyone entirely sure what it is they actually, specifically, think will happen?

Last week, Utah's Davis School District, just north of Salt Lake City, decided to ban the Bible in elementary and middle schools after a parent facetiously suggested that the book was simply too graphic, vulgar, and violent for young children. It was a rather surprising choice given the religiosity of the state — but the fact is, they're caught between a rock and a hard place with this one. They can't very well go around banning Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian or John Green’s Looking for Alaska (which they did) for being too profane and then just go and let the Bible off the hook just because it's the foundational text of one of the world's major religions.

 The complaining parent wrote:  

I thank the Utah Legislature and Utah Parents United for making this bad faith process so much easier and way more efficient. 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.

I noticed there’s a gap, though. Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible. Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and eveninfanticide. You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no seriousvalues for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition. Get this PORN out of our schools! Ifthe books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slamdunk.

You can read about the investigation into the Davis School District here. It's terrible!

It's a little sad, frankly, that the school district responded to this by actually banning the Bible and not just ... deciding that maybe banning books is a bad idea altogether. Because really, that's all anyone actually wants. The whole point behind suggesting that the Bible should be banned is to help people who are, traditionally, big fans see that banning books might be fun until it happens to your books.

That being said, one of the most disturbing things I ever read as a kid who read literally every single book she ever came into contact with was the story of St. Agatha of Sicily.

St. Agatha holding her tits on a serving tray, like you do.    commons.wikimedia.org 

I don't regret reading it, though, just like I don't regret reading anything else I've ever read. The cool thing about reading is that you can stop anytime you want and allow yourself whatever time and space you need to process it. It's not like a movie where everything seems relatively PG until all of a sudden Joyce Hyser pulls her top off just as your dad is walking into the TV room.

Now that the Bible is banned for younger students, the next book on the chopping block is the Book of Mormon — in the Mormonest state in the country.

Via AP:  

On Friday, a complaint was submitted about the signature scripture of the predominant faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church. District spokesperson Chris Williams confirmed that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but would not say what reasons were listed. Citing a school board privacy policy, he also would not say whether it was from the same person who complained about the Bible.

Representatives for the church declined to comment on the challenge. Members of the faith also read the Bible.
Williams said the district doesn’t differentiate between requests to review books and doesn’t consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee made up of teachers, parents and administrators in the largely conservative community.

That the district "doesn’t consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire" is perhaps the most frightening part of all of this, because it shows just how lightly they take the banning of books. They don't consider it a big deal at all and have no problem banning a book that someone facetiously suggested banning in order to highlight just how stupid and grotesque it is to ban books, period.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .

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