Bible-waving demonstrators gather outside Utah Capitol to protest its ban from school libraries

Bible-toting parents and Republican lawmakers gathered outside the Utah State Capitol to protest a school district’s decision to ban the book from its middle and elementary school libraries.

Protesters held placards reading “Remove porn, not the Bible” and gathered to protest the Davis School District’s removal of the Bible from some schools.

The demonstrators were also joined by Utah representative Ken Ivory who is the author of the “sensitive materials” law under which the district initially reviewed the Bible.

The Republican from West Jordan called the body that reviewed the Bible a “rogue committee” and added that it acted “anonymously and in secret”.

“It’s an anonymous committee, operating in secret, not according to the basic principles of American politics and legal practice, where you have notice and an opportunity to be heard and have all of the evidence and data in making decisions,” he was quoted as saying by the Standard-Examiner.

The Davis County school district had reviewed the Bible for inappropriate material after a challenge by a parent alleging the religious text violated the state law banning inappropriate books.

In documents submitted to the school district, the parent wrote of their frustration with the extent of Utah’s book bans and argued the Bible is “one of the most sex-ridden books around”, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

The committee found that while the King James Bible did contain “vulgarity and violence,” it didn’t technically run afoul of a 2022 book ban law.

The district announced that those in middle and elementary school in about eight schools would lose access to the Bible, while high schoolers could still check it out from the library.

Parents protested the Bible ban and held placards that read “the Bible is the original textbook” during the protest.

The Associated Press quoted a Davis County parent Karlee Vincent as saying: “We love the Bible. We love God. And we need God in our nation.”

“If folks are outraged about the Bible being banned, they should be outraged about all the books that are being censored,” Kasey Meehan, who directs the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, said last week.

Utah Parents United president Nichole Mason said Utah should give parents more say in what’s in their children’s schools. “God Bless America that we can challenge any book out there,” she was quoted as saying.

Representative Ivory meanwhile rebuffed the idea that his law paved the way for the Bible to be banned. “Should we have age-appropriate limits for children in school? Almost universally anyone of good faith says ‘Yes’. The question is then: What should those limits be?”

Critics have argued that Utah’s book ban law has been used to single out materials that discuss racial diversity and LGBT+ identities.

At the protest on Wednesday, Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum read a statement from Republican governor Spencer Cox.

“Our great nation was founded with freedom of religion as a core principle. Our children need to know that and having access to religious texts, including the Bible, in school libraries, should be the key element of their education,” it reportedly said.

Later she claimed the Bible was like a history book and that there are also violent sections in history.

“With that way of thinking, they won’t be able to teach the Civil War anymore,” she was quoted as saying by KUER Utah.

Additional reporting by agencies