Utah schools ban the Bible citing ‘vulgarity, violence’

The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for young children.

And the Book of Mormon could be next.

The 72,000-student Davis School District north of Salt Lake City removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools while keeping it in high schools after a committee reviewed the scripture in response to a parental complaint.

The district has removed other titles, including Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a

Part-Time Indian and John Green’s Looking for Alaska, following a 2022 state law requiring districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes “sensitive material”.

On Friday, a complaint was submitted about the signature scripture of the predominant faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church. District spokesman Chris Williams confirmed that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but would not say what reasons were listed.

Citing a school board privacy policy, he also would not say whether it was from the same person who complained about the Bible. Representatives of the church declined to comment on the challenge. Members of the faith also read the Bible.

Williams said the district did not differentiate between requests to review books and did not consider whether complaints might be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee made up of teachers, parents and administrators in the largely conservative community.

The committee published its decision about the Bible in an online database of review requests and did not elaborate on its reasoning or which passages it found too violent or vulgar.

A copy of the complaint obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through a public records request shows that the parent noted the Bible contained instances of incest, prostitution and rape. The complaint derided a “bad faith process” and said the district was “ceding our children’s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access” to Parents United.

“Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible,” the parent’s complaint, dated December 11, said. “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.”

Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around

A PARENT’S COMPLAINT