After previously calling a parent’s challenge of the Bible a “mockery” and a political stunt, the Utah legislator who wrote the law the parent used to request its removal now says he agrees with a school district’s decision to ban the religious text from elementary and middle schools.
In a public statement reversing course posted to his Facebook page Thursday night, Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, said the book is a “challenging read” for younger kids. And he feels it’s best if they read it at home.
“Traditionally, in America, the Bible is best taught, and best understood, in the home, and around the hearth, as a family,” he said.
The legislator’s law banning “pornographic or indecent” books from schools took effect in 2022, following outcry from conservative groups about books they found inappropriate — which have largely centered on texts about the LGBTQ+ community.
In December, a parent in Davis School District said they became frustrated with the books that were being removed by those right-leaning efforts. So they challenged the King James Version of the Bible, writing in a complaint that it was time to remove “one of the most sex-ridden books around.”
“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “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.”
When that request became public in March — and drew national attention — Ivory said he opposed his measure being used to ban the Bible, calling it a misreading of the intent.
The books Ivory said he was worried about in drafting the measure included graphic novels with drawings that legislative attorneys advised him he couldn’t show in public meetings because “they would violate state and federal obscenity laws.” That includes “Gender Queer,” a novel about the author’s journey of self-identity that has some scenes of illustrated figures engaging in sexual conduct.
“There was a purpose to the bill and this kind of stuff, it’s very unfortunate,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune about the Bible complaint.
Ivory said then that he did not see the parent’s challenge as a serious request. He suggested: “For people to minimize that and to make a mockery of it is very sad.”
Based on the code he wrote, a book is indecent for school libraries if it includes explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling. According to state attorneys, material doesn’t have to be “taken as a whole” in those situations or left on the shelf during a review. If there is a scene involving any of those acts, it should be immediately removed.
A book committee in Davis School District reviewed the parent’s complaint of the Bible and determined this week that the text would stay on the shelf in high schools, saying it did not violate that law.
But it will be taken out of elementary and middle schools for containing “vulgarity or violence.” A spokesperson for the district said he believes there were seven or eight schools that had copies of the Bible where the book would be removed.
The Salt Lake Tribune will update this developing story.
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June 03, 2023 at 12:27AM
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Reversing course, Utah lawmaker now supports Bible being banned from schools under law he wrote - Salt Lake Tribune
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