Several schools in a Utah school district (USA) have vetoed the Bible after a student's parent denounced it as "pornographic" for its sexual and violent content, taking advantage of a controversial state law, which allows removal from educational centers books considered inappropriate for students.
The father indicated that the Bible contains passages about incest, rape and prostitution, and is essentially "pornographic", according to a state regulation approved in 2022, which has been used above all by conservative groups to censor books on racial or LGBT themes, as reported this Friday by The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper.
The complaint, which involved the Davis school district in Utah, has come a long way since it was filed last December and, after being reviewed this week, a committee dedicated to the matter has decided that the Bible should be withdrawn from seven or eight elementary and middle level schools, although secondary schools can maintain it.
To the surprise of many, after learning of the decision, this Friday the Republican legislator who promoted the law that restricts access to "indecent" books, Ken Ivory, who first criticized the label "pornographic" for the Bible and said that it was a " joke" and a political misrepresentation, he gave in and even thanked the committee for vetoing the religious text in the classes and libraries of the little ones.
In a Facebook post, Ivory called the Bible "tough reading" for younger students in the compulsory education system, adding that "traditionally, in America, the Bible is best taught, and best understood, in the home, and around the fireplace, like a family".
According to the Tribune, the parent who sued did so out of frustration at books being removed from schools due to conservative denunciations, a trend noted in April by major US free-speech groups. ., the American Library Association (ALA), and the writers' organization PEN America.
According to the ALA, in 2022 book censorship attempts doubled from the previous year to a two-decade high, while PEN America similarly recorded a rise in book bans in schools, directly attributing it to effect of restrictive laws promoted by states governed by Republicans, such as Utah, Florida and Missouri.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
