The original review committee decided the Bible should be removed from elementary and junior high school libraries as it was deemed inappropriate for those age groups because of its violence and vulgarity based on state law House Bill 374 which used a statute-based definition on pornography to define “sensitive materials”.

State legislators sponsoring a bill need to be specific enough to obtain what they want to achieve, but vague enough so that those who do things per the law that the legislators do not want them to do per the law can be threatened with possible punitive legal action over the vagueness in the law. Who wants to chance punitive legal action from the state and court costs to determine in court what the vagueness in the law really means.

Original committee members were anonymous; whereas the DSD appeals court members are not. Between the state threatening review committee members for doing things per the law that they do not like with punitive legal action over the law’s vagueness, and community members voicing their outrage and sometimes threatening violence against the committee members, is anyone surprised that the DSD school board “unanimously” accepted the recommendation to reverse the decision and allow the Bible in elementary and junior high libraries.

Community standards have been turned into political double standards by an extreme minority pushing their values on everyone else. If you don’t want your kid to read a book, fine, but you don’t get to decide for me and my family. Should my tax dollars support only the library books that the extreme minority wants? Let Utah Read!!!

Richard Keckler

North Ogden