A Utah parent has filed a formal request to have the Bible removed from the libraries of the Davis County School District under new state legislation that bars “pornographic or indecent” content.
Referring to the Bible as “one of the most sex-ridden books around,” the parent apparently made the request in protest of the 2022 state legislation that resulted in a wave of book bannings in Utah schools.
“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,” the parent wrote in the request, which was obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune. “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,” the parent went on to write.
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Utah Parents United is a conservative advocacy group that pushed for the legislation to remove pornographic and indecent reading material from public schools. They have been accused by their opponents of specifically targeting works authored by or written about the LGBTQ+ community and people of color.
One of the books at the center of this debate—both in Utah and around the nation—has been “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” a graphic novel written by Maia Kobabe. Proponents of its removal cite its explicit illustrations of oral sex and masturbation. Those opposed to its removal accuse conservatives of attempting to silence minority voices.
The parent’s allusion to Davis County School District being “under investigation for being racist” is apparently a reference to a 2021 investigation conducted by the Justice Department, which found that the district had intentionally ignored “serious and widespread” racial harassment in its schools for years.
In 2022, the family of a Black junior high student who allegedly endured a pattern of racial discrimination and harassment sued the district. That harassment reportedly included being called a “cotton picker” and the n-word.
“I noticed there’s a gap, though,” the parent’s request went on to read, referring to books and materials that have already been banned. “Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible.”
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“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide. You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values (sic) for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition,” the parent wrote. “Get this PORN out of our schools! If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk.”
