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Bible banned from elementary schools in Utah district for containing "pornographic or indecent" material

A parent took advantage of a controversial state law and, in December 2022, pointed out up to sixty quotes of "offensive content" in the religious text.

Imagen de la Biblia con un logo con la palabra

(Voz Media / Public Domain Pictures).

Published by
Rosana Rábago Sainz

Many students up to age 12 in the Salt Lake school district in Utah will not be able to read the Bible in their school. A controversial state law decreed that the religious text should be removed from school libraries following a complaint from a parent who, in December 2022, claimed that the Christian book contained "pornographic or indecent" material.

Specifically, The Salt Lake Tribune unveiled, the complaint asserted that the Bible "is one of the most sexually explicit books in existence." The father assured that the text contains "incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape and even infanticide." He evidenced this claim with up to 60 quotes that, according to him, contain "offensive content" and justify the removal of the Christian book from schools.

The parent claimed in the complaint that he had seen other titles such as Sherman Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" and John Green's "Looking for Alaska" removed from schools following complaints from Utah Parents United. The agency claimed that these works contained "sensitive material," while, according to the complainant, it forgot to apply the same criterion to the Bible:

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.

Bible bans in high schools?

The complainant also sought to have the Bible removed from high schools, but a committee ruled that, for the time being, the Christian scripture will only be removed from schools with children under 12 years of age.

The committee evaluated the book in May and assured that it "does not contain sensitive material," although it did recommend that it be withdrawn from elementary schools "according to age criteria due to vulgar and violent content." The Bible has since been removed from the school libraries of at least eight schools.

It joins at least 52 books that were also removed from school library shelves in Utah and other books that were removed from Texas libraries. These bans are protected under the Utah Sensitive Content in Schools Act passed in 2022.

This regulation gives the Salt Lake school district the right to remove the Bible. For Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, this exemplifies how damaging it is to censor books:

The use of Utah’s "sensitive materials" law to remove this book and other books demonstrates how efforts to suppress and censor library materials narrows educational opportunities and harms students’ access to information.
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