That the book banning binge in schools has hit Colorado Springs was noted from last October in a blog post about the emergence here of the Moms for Liberty - at least one chapter, e.g.
Now their overreach and incessant crusade against reasonable reading fare has aroused one parent - an Air Force vet - to understandable fury. So much so that for consistency's sake in applying the Moms' standards, i.e. books containing lewd descriptions, he wants the Bible also banned. Every last one in every last Academy District 20 school.
For perspective, D20 agreed to ban at least 26 books present in the district's schools from last year. A number of the complaining parents were members of the Moms for Liberty, El Paso County chapter. Their basis, as noted in the link above to my earlier post, was that the books' content contained sexual references and allusions not fit for school age kids. That included any books with LGBTQ references or stories. (Moms for Liberty has since been named an "anti-government extremist group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center..)
This has all been too much for D20 parent, data scientist and Air Force vet Rob Rogers. He now wants the Bible banned from D20 schools. And before anyone dismisses this as a lark or gimmick, he has the Freedom From Religion Foundation behind him. Rogers backs up his claim that the 'good book' merits banning as well by citing a passage in which a "prostitute is described as lusting after her lover's donkey-sized genitals". (Colorado Springs Independent, July 2-11, p. 3) I checked my own copy of the King James Bible and found that passage (Ezekiel 23:18-21 ) without too much trouble:
“When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses."
Don't take my word, check the reference in your own bible or bibles. (And, btw, 'None', Atheist, Freethinker or whatever, every person should own a bible - the first book ever run off the Gutenberg press.) Beyond that singleton, I found multiple references that - if the Moms for Liberty were serious about standards - wouldn't pass muster for kids' reading fare.
Rogers is adamant that he doesn't want any books banned - being foursquare for free thought - unlike the oxymoronic "Moms for Liberty". But he does insist there be objective standards used when judging a book's fitness. As he related to the Indy (ibid.):
"I don't want any books banned but I do have a concern because the standards they are using are completely subjective and subject to the viewpoint of a handful of individuals and that's not sustainable long term. If every individual viewpoint has to be considered like that would we have any books in the library?"
Probably not. Indeed, in my 2013 book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, i discussed the pernicious habit of "moral trivialization" which could - if not tempered - lead to moralism. As I wrote:
"If moral trivialization is
permitted to metastasize into law then we describe it as Moralism, For the most part, moralism isn’t founded on species survival but on
an unsubstantiated and subjective belief in a uniform human sensibility to
external stimuli. In this way it becomes
the conscious vehicle of behavior modification, used by any group with
political or economic power."
This description perfectly applies to the crusades of the Moms for Liberty as well as a multitude of other far right outfits including Ron Desantis anti-woke degenerated in Florida. (From which the Moms for liberty actually sprung).
The Bible, for sure, gets exemption from banning because it's taken to be a "religious" text and religious texts can't be immoral. And yet by some subjective standards they can, just as certain LGBTQ books have been banned nationwide. In the words of Christopher Lee, attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation - quoted in the Indy:
"If the Bible's vast amount of sexually explicit material doesn't qualify it for removal then the same standard must be applied to all other books."
This is a timely and appropriate observation. And unless Academy district D20 as well as the complaining parents can come up with objective standards as a basis for their book rejections, they need to consider banning the Bible too. Unless, of course, they are prepared to expose the innocent students to the sort of quote from Ezekiel shown above. Obviously, there are also a multitude of other biblical extractions - including punishments that some fundies want even today - that bear close scrutiny. But will people do it? Or give a pass because it's from a religious source?
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