One parent in Utah flipped the script on Republicans and is now calling for the Bible to be removed from schools over its “sex-ridden” content.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed the Sensitive Materials in Schools Act into law last March. The law bans books with “pornographic or indecent” material from public schools and libraries in the state.
Several conservative groups, including Utah Parents United, have used the law to demand some books be removed from schools, primarily literary works with LGBTQ themes and those written by people of color.
But, one complaint filed by an unnamed parent against Davis High School in December 2022, called for the Bible to be removed due its “pornographic” content.
“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!” the unnamed parent wrote in the complaint obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune.
“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 even infanticide,” the complaint reads.
The unidentified parent said officials will “no doubt” find that the Bible violates the new book banning law since it has “‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”
Under Utah law, a literary work is considered to be indecent if it includes explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling.
“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.”
State Rep. Ken Ivory, the Republican lawmaker who sponsored the book banning bill called the parent’s complaint to remove the Bible from the school “antics that drain school resources,” and a “political stunt,” according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
“There are any number of studies that directly link sexualization and hyper-sexualization with sexual exploitation and abuse. Certainly, those are things we don’t want in schools,” Ivory said.
“For people to minimize that and to make a mockery of it is very sad,” he added.
A spokesperson for the school district told The Tribune that the request to remove the Bible has been given to a committee to review. The process usually takes up to 60 days, but due to a backlog its taking longer.
