A Utah parent is speaking out against his daughter’s school district removing the Bible from elementary and middle schools.
The Bible was restricted to only the high schools in Utah’s Davis School District "based on age appropriateness due to vulgarity or violence," after another parent filed a complaint. Last year, Utah passed a law to restrict pornographic and inappropriate material in public schools.
"The idea of that bill was to stop from conditioning our children to different values and beliefs than we want," Colton Lindsay, a parent of a 10-year-old daughter who attends a school in the district, told Fox News Digital.
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Sensitive Materials in Schools (H.B. 374) was signed into law in March of 2022, requiring public schools to prohibit "pornographic or indecent material." It was sponsored by Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory (R) who told Fox News earlier this week that he opposes his bill being used to remove the Bible.
Lindsay, who is also a public real estate sales speaker, said that he thinks the bill was "manipulated through a parent that just disagrees and more leans to a left view or a more liberal type view."
The unidentified parent submitted the complaint in December of 2022, mocking the law and claiming a conservative group involved in challenging certain books "left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible."
"Incest, onanism, beastiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide," the complaint reads. "Get this PORN out of our schools!"
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A representative of the district, Christopher Williams, told Fox News Digital that the King James Version of the Bible was removed from around seven to eight schools by a "Sensitive Materials Review Committee." The committee's members are unidentified but the district’s policy requires it to be constituted of a district department or school administrator, an English Language Arts teacher or other relevant subject, a librarian working in the district and four parents with students enrolled in a district school.
Kasey Meehan, a director of PEN America's Freedom to Read project told Fox News Digital the removal "highlights the chilling impact that book bans are having on schools, where a complaint from any side can become grounds for removing access to a book."
"The growing movement towards educational censorship, fueled by vague legislation, has made it clear that no book, no matter its obvious cultural and academic merit, is exempt from being removed or restricted," she added.
Lindsay, who says he identifies as a Christian but doesn’t go to church, said he doesn’t think the Bible should be removed from the schools.
"I do think it's pretty ridiculous, though, here that the Bible was removed, especially if you look at the context behind which those words were written," he said. "It was not saying, ‘hey, let's go practice incest or bestiality, it's saying, hey, this is what decayed a society because of these behaviors and these practices."
"Honestly, it's like we're watching the history of a new chapter of the Bible being written today," Lindsay added. "That's what it really feels like."
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Lindsay added that the removal is more symbolic than anything else.
"I don't think any of those children in there are going to go check out any of those books…they already have their scriptures at home or they're carrying with them," he said. "I think it's more based on principle here, is that we're seeing Christian values removed from the school, and implemented a new value system that not everyone agrees upon."
Lindsay said he has experienced this firsthand; his daughter came home with a book which was opposed to his values.
"It was about a ten-year-old girl who fell in love with her best friend. That was also a girl," he said. "I don't want my children taught specific things yet."
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He said that he doesn’t think the book was intentionally placed in the school but likely "slipped through the cracks."
"I don't know that we can actually monitor everything at this point, hence why this bill was written, so that … parents, when it's brought to the table, say, ‘hey, this is a book I don't think falls into alignment with what we want.’"
Lindsay said the Bible removal has been a big topic in the community but that he believes most parents are not supportive and should speak out.
"We believe that there is one gender of male, one gender of female, and we believe that's how science works and that that's how the forward movement should be taught to our children."
Lindsay added that he doesn’t believe the bill’s original intention to remove inappropriate books should be labeled as a book ban.
"I don't think that's about banning those books, because if parents want those books, they can go purchase those books online," he said. "What we're saying is, ‘hey, look, we have had a specific way, a value system that we [don't] want our children to be exposed to without our knowledge.’"
Click here to hear more from Lindsay about the Bible being removed from his daughter's school.
