Utah school district considers Bible ban under new 'sensitive materials' law

A school district in Utah may ban the Holy Bible after a parent complained that it contained "inappropriate and pornographic" material forced it to face committee review.

On Dec. 11, the David School District received a petition from a parent to have the Bible removed from schools for being what the parent considered a "sex-ridden" book. The petition of the parent requesting review of the Bible was made available on Tuesday with the parent’s name and address withheld. 

"Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible. You’ll no doubt find that the Bible has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition," the petition read.

This complaint followed the passing of Utah’s "Sensitive Materials in Schools" law enacted in May which "prohibits certain sensitive instructional materials" if they contain "explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling." Within the first five months of the law being in place, parents filed over 250 complaints petitioning for certain books to be removed from schools.

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According to the parent’s petition, the Bible falls under this description and deserves to be removed.

"Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide," the parent wrote. "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."

According to District spokesperson Chris Williams, the challenge was taken up for committee review as any other book despite its religious nature.

"It is a process. Anyone who requests a book to be reviewed has to have standing," Williams explained. "We don't jump to conclusions, we go through the entire process. We don't blow off one request because we think it's silly. This has been very time-consuming. We have 15 committees that have been established for this purpose."

The process takes an average of 60 days, though Williams has said that committees are currently facing a backlog of requests from other parents.

So far, 81 books have been reviewed by the district’s committee. The committee removed 33 books while retaining about 30 after review. 

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According to the district’s website, the parent was required to present 49 pages of the Bible’s text that could be used as evidence for "inappropriate content."

The Davis School District committee is made up of about seven people, including a district administrator, a licensed teacher who is teaching English Language Arts, a librarian and at least four parents who will vote on whether the Bible will remain in schools.

Currently, the school also maintains a policy that "Religious tracts, books, or literature may not be singled out for special regulation or prohibition based on content, but is subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions imposed by the schools on other non-school related literature." There has been ongoing debate about whether this policy would affect a potential removal of the Bible from schools.

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"Get this PORN out of our schools," the parent wrote along with an eight-page listing of "offensive" Bible passages. "If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk."