It’s difficult to keep abreast of all the latest developments in American book banning, but even in a real life horror story currently playing out across the country, I do love a good ironic twist. Today’s example: in one Texas school district, widespread book bans have led to the removal of the most cherished—and bafflingly, wrongly interpreted—books of many of those who love banning books. No, not the Left Behind series—the Bible.
Texas’s Keller Independent School District was the target of a Texas Education Agency investigation last year because of “concerns that it had sexually explicit books available to children.” As a result, complaints flooded the district, including at least one about the Bible—which, to be fair, does contain a lot of sex, violence, socialism, and Jewish people.
The district had previously been conducting reviews of all challenged books—which also included The Bluest Eye and a graphic novel adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank—behind closed doors, and will apparently be re-reviewing them on an unspecified timeline, but for now, the Word of God will be kept under lock and key, just like Greg Abbott and Jesus (not the one in the Bible—the racist, capitalist one that Republicans invented) intended.
[via The Dallas Morning News]