The Davis School District located in Salt Lake City, Utah, which educates some 72,000 students, will again allow their school libraries -for children under 12 years of age- to have the Bible on their shelves, this comes after it was banned at the beginning of June for containing "pornographic or indecent" material. These terms were uttered by the parents of students associated with Utah Parents United through a complaint in December 2022:
Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible. You’ll no doubt find that the Bible (under state law) has 'no serious values for minors' because it’s pornographic by our new definition. The books that have been banned so far contain much lesser offenses, so this should be a clear case.
The school board's resolution comes after 70 people filed an appeal against the first decision. "Based on their assessment of community standards, the appeal committee determined that The Bible has a significant and serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains," they said.
The complainants alleged that the ban on the Bible amounted to a "bad faith process." The Davis School District "ceding our children’s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access" to guidelines imposed by Utah Parents United.
