Angered by a law that provides for the removal of books with pornographic content from school libraries and classrooms, a father in the US state of Utah has made an unexpected request to the board that evaluates the banned works.
He wants to ban the Bible from schools, claiming it is “one of the most sex-filled books out there.”
Davis County will review, reported The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s newspaper.
“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, rape, and even infanticide,” the father wrote in his request, in which he attached eight pages of the Bible with passages he considers inappropriate.
“You will no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah code, has no ‘serious values for minors’ because it is pornographic by our new definition.”
To the Tribune, the school district spokesman said the father’s request would be reviewed.
“We don’t differentiate between one request and another,” he assured.
“We see it as the work we do.”
“The deadline for review is 60 days.”
“In this case, there was a delay because more parents are questioning the books.”
The request was made on December 11.
Passed in 2022, the state law had key support from Utah Parents United, a conservative parents’ group that has largely focused on texts concerning the LGBT+ community.
The law provides that a book is inappropriate if it includes content about “explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, sexual intercourse, sodomy, or fondling.”
Among the books already questioned by the group is Gender Queer, a comic book about the author’s journey of self-identity.
The parent who filed the petition claimed that Utah Parents United is “a white supremacist hate group” and that Davis County would be under investigation for racism.
According to the Tribune, the US Department of Justice concluded in 2021 that the district intentionally ignored “serious and pervasive” racial harassment in its schools for years.
Utah Parents United told the newspaper that the group “believes in following the law.”
“That’s all we’re asking of the schools.”
‘THE REQUEST IS A JOKE,’ SAYS CONGRESSMAN, COAUTHOR OF LAW
Republican Congressman Ken Ivory, one of the bill’s authors to remove pornographic books from school libraries, called the request to remove the Bible “clownery that depletes school resources” and considered it a political stunt, not a serious request.
He added, “It’s very sad that people minimize this and mock it.”
“There was a purpose to the bill and this kind of thing; it’s very unfortunate,” he said.
“Several studies directly link sexualization and hypersexualization with sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. Certainly, those are things we don’t want in schools.”
According to the congressman, the intent has always been to limit books based on the appropriate age for school children.
“If a parent still wants their child to read a particular book, they can buy it on Amazon or at a bookstore or even take a look at their public library,” Ivory noted.
With information from Revista Oeste