Texas Book Ban Backfires After School Removes Bible Over "Sexually Explicit" Content

Friendly Atheist ✊ GOP Rep. Jared Patterson now says the Bible was never meant to be removed from school shelves.

A Republican-led book ban backfired after a public school district in Texas decided to remove the Bible from its shelves on account of it being too “sexually explicit,” and the controversy only subsided after the law’s sponsor intervened to get it back in front of students.

In 2023, the Republican-supermajority in Texas passed House Bill 900, sponsored by Rep. Jared Patterson, which required school libraries to remove any books deemed “sexually explicit.” Recently, Dr. Darryl Flusche, superintendent of the Canyon Independent School District, sent an email to an unnamed person letting them know the “full text of the Bible” would not be available to students. That email soon went public.

This standard for library content prohibits books that have one instance of sexual content as described above. Therefore, HB900 doesn’t allow numerous books, including the full text of the Bible, to be available in the school library.

There are 30 titles available in the Canyon Junior High library that are Bible stories or portions of the Bible…

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