The Freedom from Religion Foundation, which describes itself as a nontheistic nonprofit, is giving Leon County School District an ultimatum: Ban the Bible or stop banning books altogether.
In an email sent to school board members on July 14, the Freedom from Religion Foundation piled onto a recent successful effort by the local chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty to pull five books found in Leon County high schools.
The next school board meeting will be 2 p.m. July 24 to discuss the first official book challenge hearing of “I am Billie Jean King” by Brad Meltzer.
“We are disturbed that the district has chosen to start removing books from school libraries based on content taken out of context at the request of extremist groups like Moms for Liberty,” foundation Staff Attorney Christopher Line said in the published email to the district.
Freedom from Religion says the Bible should be banned based on the same reasoning Moms for Liberty presented in their request; “sexually explicit content.”
“We write to request that the District either ban the bible based on the criterion of ‘sexually explicit content’ it has used to ban these books, or cease banning books and return the banned books to school shelves,” Line wrote in the email.
Except that’s against the Constitution of the United States of America and a violation of peoples basic human rights. People have every right to practice their religious beliefs here, and I say that as a liberal progressive. Being offensive is not an excuse to destroy peoples fundamental rights, and it’s a deadly slope to go down.
My view is that no book bans would be better. However, iif they are insisting that books should be banned for “sexual content” (even though most times the sexual content is minimal if it’s even there), then the Bible should absolutely be banned. If there’s one standard for the Bible and another one for LGBTQ books, then it’s not a just rule.
It’s a deadly slope and groups like Moms for Liberty have already taken us down it. This case has two possible outcomes: 1, Ban the Bible, or 2. Return the previously, unjustly banned books. In chess this called a Knight’s Fork, and the group who posed it will win either way.
People most certainly have a right to practice whatever religion they want. However, as a “liberal progressive” you might want to brush up on the establishment clause of the first amendment. Especially if this is a public school.
Having the Bible in a public school doesn’t violate the establishment clause. Not allowing any other religious text would, however.
But pretty much all of these book bans working their way through schools absolutely DO infringe freedom of expression. As is the goal.
I see no problem with using these badly-written bans to hoist these people by their own petards until they stop spreading their evil into schools in the name of a religion. Because the Bible contains all the necessary themes to get it “legitimately” banned under any of these laws, proving clearly how overly broad and arbitrary the laws are.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
What did I miss here? If a Bible Ban were to even happen the SCOTUS would never allow it under any condition in any State, no matter how liberal the SCOTUS were at any given time as it is a direct attack on protected liberties and against all we believe in as a country
This is not a general ban on the bible.
People will still be completely able to read, carry and distribute the bible outside of schools. People will still be free to read the bible and pass it around in school, provided they bring their own copy.
This is just a ban on the school library keeping and lending copies of the bible.
(Though a general ban on the bible would certainly do the States some good.)
