A school district in Utah that opted to pull the Bible from elementary and middle school libraries is now considering whether to ban the Book of Mormon. The text is considered sacred to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest religious group in the state.
In May, a Davis School District committee deemed the Bible to be age-inappropriate “due vulgarity or violence.” One parent cited over 60 Bible passages as offensive in their complaint, according to Axios.
Despite the new restrictions, the Bible will remain available in the district’s high schools. However, the Book of Mormon is now set to go under review.
These developments come in the wake of a law passed last year in Utah. It allows parents to request the removal of books from schools if they contain “pornographic or indecent material.”
While the district’s ruling determined that the Bible’s content does not violate that 2022 law, Fox reported that within the first five months of the law being in place, parents filed over 250 complaints petitioning for certain books to be removed from schools.
The recent petition to remove the Bible is being viewed by some as a countermove to recent conservative efforts to remove LGBTQ-themed books and books deemed explicit in schools across the country.
According to literary nonprofit PEN America, book bans have been most prevalent in states like Texas, Florida, Missouri and South Carolina. The organization reports book bans in public schools kept rising during the first half of the 2022-23 school year, and nearly a third of them were the direct result of newly-enacted state laws.
An analysis by The Washington Post revealed that sexual content emerged as a top concern behind recent book challenges, with 61% of challenges referencing this issue. Other concerns raised by parents include drugs, inappropriate language and pornographic content.
43% of the filings targeted titles with LGBTQ characters or themes, while 36% targeted titles featuring characters of color or dealing with issues of race and racism, per the Post.
Last year, a Texas school district removed the Bible from library shelves after facing challenges from parents and community members. Similarly, students in Kansas last month requested to have the Bible removed from their school library, seemingly in retaliation over conservatives efforts targeting books.
