Poorly worded legislation in the flurry to restrict and/or ban books that are deemed "pornographic or indecent’ from schools appear to be having [presumably unanticipated] consequences
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ctim-the-bible
A Utah school district recently removed the King James Bible from school libraries for containing “vulgarity or violence”. Last year, you see, amid an orgy of conservative book-banning, Utah’s Republican legislators passed a law that allowed any parent to file a challenge about a book in a public school they considered “pornographic or indecent”. Of course, nobody wants pornography or indecent materials in schools, but this law has been wielded in bad faith to get rid of anything related to LGBTQ+ people or racial identity.
One enterprising parent in the Davis school district, north of Salt Lake City, fought back by providing eight pages of examples of objectionable material from the Bible. The Bible, they complained, contains “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape and even infanticide … You’ll no doubt find that the Bible … has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.” The school district was duly convinced and removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools.
This isn’t the first time that conservatives have had their vaguely written, regressive laws weaponised against them. Last year, someone responded to Florida’s “don’t say gay” laws by circulating a letter among Florida teachers recommending that all students be referred to as “they” and “them” to avoid “gendered pronouns” such as “he” and “she”. As it says in the Bible, you reap what you sow.
A Utah school district recently removed the King James Bible from school libraries for containing “vulgarity or violence”. Last year, you see, amid an orgy of conservative book-banning, Utah’s Republican legislators passed a law that allowed any parent to file a challenge about a book in a public school they considered “pornographic or indecent”. Of course, nobody wants pornography or indecent materials in schools, but this law has been wielded in bad faith to get rid of anything related to LGBTQ+ people or racial identity.
One enterprising parent in the Davis school district, north of Salt Lake City, fought back by providing eight pages of examples of objectionable material from the Bible. The Bible, they complained, contains “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape and even infanticide … You’ll no doubt find that the Bible … has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.” The school district was duly convinced and removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools.
This isn’t the first time that conservatives have had their vaguely written, regressive laws weaponised against them. Last year, someone responded to Florida’s “don’t say gay” laws by circulating a letter among Florida teachers recommending that all students be referred to as “they” and “them” to avoid “gendered pronouns” such as “he” and “she”. As it says in the Bible, you reap what you sow.
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