You're probably familiar, especially if you watch the nonprofits, which you should, about some of the arguments that take place over the banning of books, whether it be because of sexually explicit material or some other mature content. But what happens when that policy backfires on the Bible? Incest, sexual assault, a lot of other really bad stuff happening. Steven is here to take us away on this article about this subject.
Thanks Jimmy. Yeah. Republican lawmakers in Texas can't seem to follow the law even when they're the ones writing it. In twenty twenty three, Texas past House Bill nine hundred, banning sexually explicit books from schools. This led Kenyon Independent School District to quietly pull the Bible from library shelves, likely due to the graphic depiction of violence and sexuality
within its covers. When this development surfaced in December of twenty twenty four, the bill's sponsor, Republican Representative Jared Patterson, was livid. He accused the superintendent of misinterpreting the law, dismissed any claims of explicit content in the Bible, and demanded its immediate reinstatement. Patterson implied ulterior motives behind the decision, but provided no rationale as to why this specific book
should be immune to the very standards that he helped enact. Now, as a result, Republicans' favorite Bronze age sex manual is back on shelves for children to read without any explanation from why as to why it gets exempt from their own law.
Yeah.
This story is from The Friendly Atheist by Hemmett Meta on December twenty third, twenty twenty four. Boy, we love Hemmett Meta. We love the Friendly Atheist. I think we have an article from him on every episode. So thanks, thanks for stocking our content with good stuff. And that was a great intro. You know, I want to know why so in this article the superintendent, in my opinion, took the right course of action by standardizing the policy
to all books. Right, but then they reversed the reversed course. Didn't reverse course? And Steven, I want to get your take on that. You know, what, what the hell happened?
I mean, we were doing so good, we were doing so good.
What happened there?
Yeah? Like like anytime you see a career politician pressuring a career educator, you know that you are living in a time that is devoted to ignorance and controlling the masses, like as like the like. A lot of the information that has surfaced in this issue was the result of, like, oh, this snippet of an email got shared, so then that resulted in this part of an email getting shared back and forth. So we don't we don't know the full context.
We don't have the play by play by play, but as best as we can tell, you know, I guess a parent wanted to know why the Bible wasn't on the shelves in their child's library, and that question got forwarded to the superintendent. The superintendent said, hey, sorry, like you know, this is the new law that was passed saying sexually explicit books can't be on ourselves. If you don't like it, you know, I'm sorry. This is out of my hands. But here's our Republican representative. He's the
one who passed this bill. He or at least the one who sponsored the bill. That's why we're in this, this gosh darn situation that we're in. Shucks, But don't worry. We've got lots of partner in churches where we can supply your kids with Bibles.
What the fuck.
And so when the question got brought to the politician as to why are you saying that the Bible shouldn't be in schools, that's when he went off and said, what the fudge are you talking about? Of course the Bible needs to be in there, because the Bible is protected by these laws, and just did not did not, in any way whatsoever address the problem that this book is full of all this vile, reprehensible, sexually explicit content. Just said it did not exist. It shows that he
has no idea what exactly is in the Bible. Accused the superintendent of not understanding the law and just said, no, no, no, I did the right thing, and you are the one who is acting sus.
Well, I read the law, and I read the letter from from Jared Patterson, and you know, Patterson doesn't even know the law. I mean, let's not forget. Yeah, he doesn't know what's in the Bible to be so curious as to why I got removed. But the law doesn't even say that the Bible must be in uh must be in the library at the school. It actually says
religious literature. And if you're going to remove sexually explicit religious literature, you can do that and still or excuse me, if you're going to take snippets out of the literature, you can still have the literature in the book or in the library and not have those explicit. I mean, you could comply with the law and with people's faith.
And that's partly what they did too, Like he pointed out the fact that, yeah, we don't have the Bible as a whole on the shelves, but we still have this book, this book, this book, this book in this book.
Well, I think I think that the superintendent completely folded. One parent wrote a letter, the Patterson flipped out, probably because he wants to look good to his constituents, and then the the superintendent completely folded. Helen, Who are you more aghast at Jared Patterson or the superintendent who completely reverse course when we were doing so good?
Oh definitely the superintendent. Okay, definitely, because Patterson's doing like he he's a religious weirdo and he wants a super special book, and his super special book is super important him. Anythings everybody should read and believe in his super special book. So fine, and so I'm not surprised at this. I'm more angry at the superintendent because they were following the law. They were like, okay, like do you ban these books?
You ban sexually explicit content. The Bible has sexually explicit content. Is there's sexual there's sexual assault, there's insists like you know, we can go on and on. So when you like, I don't want my kids to read I wouldn't want like, you know, junior high kids reading that, you know, and without some contexts you know, included. But again they were like okay, you know what. No, And then with a little bit of pressure and threatened, and that's with legal action.
He was like, yeah, I'm going to reverse course. And I'm just gonna say this super this super book, the super Special book, because Patterson's like his panties in a twist, has to remain on the shelf. And I hate this because I hate hypocrisy. It drives me crazy, and like and and the thing that drives me even more crazy, like Lord forbid, pun intended that they read like things like to Kill a Mockingbird. You know, no I read
that book. Had to read the Super Special, like the Super Special book that's full of all these horrible things. You know, it's not even a good Bronze age sex manual. I'm sure there were way better bronze age sex man a littles that were written than the Bible, ready, damn sure. So yeah, not not a fan of the superintendent because I hate hypocrisy and he was doing what he was told to do and then he cowtailed, and that just it's gross and that's that's that's how I feel.
In two he was named Superintendent of the Year just so.
While he probably wanted to keep that status by not angering some of the more Christian and right leaning UH parents and school board members and members of the community in general, because this is Texas after all, you know, Tracy, I wanted to get your take the the back and forth between.
Uh the governor.
It was governor, right, am?
I am?
I right about that?
No, Patterson, Who the hell is Patterson.
He's a he's a state representative.
Okay, right, right? So the back and forth between Patterson and the superintendent. Is Patterson playing dumb about his book or is there you know something else that's going on about here?
So Patterson, Sorry, I've lost track of who Patterson was. So Patterson Patterson, I see, I see, Yeah, he's the one who wrote the letter. I had his letter pulled up and I forgot who he was. So I don't think that Jared Patterson is playing anything. I think he genuinely doesn't know because it's easy. Many people will follow the faith and not read their text. So it's really easy to not know about Lot and his daughters because
they don't bring that up very much, you know. I I think that it's just a case of special pleading that they want to get their thing in. It doesn't matter by what method, and they don't want things that they disapprove of to go in, and it doesn't matter by what method they want. It's just this constant thing of I want my way, and my way is the way it's going to happen, and we're not going to do anything other than exactly the way I want it to happen. If I were to go approach the world
that way, I would never get my way. Ever, I would never have any friends.
You should run to the president.
You need to be able to compromise at a certain level here, like To Kill a Mockingbird. I read that book. Yeah, it has a few disturbing passages in it, a few disturbing words, but it's not an unpalatable book. The scene with Lot and his daughters is thoroughly unpa palatable to me. So clearly it's a matter of opinion, and their opinion is that they're fine reading about Lot and his daughters,
but reading about Antebellum South is just too much. And I don't really they seem just to be babies and to be throwing their hands up in the air, and like, I don't like these books, but my favorite book is just like them. It's just a classic case of whining and poor me.
So, you know, this reminds me of the article that we discussed on Monday, when we talked about you know, people wanting what they want and they don't care who it impacts, right, you know, the system is only good when the system operates that way for them, and I
think that that is what we're seeing. You know, we have a legislator who supported this policy, and when the policy turned around to bite him in the ass, you know, he kind of just irately pointed the finger at the intent superintendent who is just following the rules, and then the superintendent due to the same political pressures by his community, because let's face it, Pattison wants to get re elected, so he's got to be a champion of the religious right.
And you know what's his name.
The superintendent doesn't want to make any waves, so he just falls right in line. And you know, I think that this is a dangerous mixing of state and education, right. I don't think that the church should be anywhere near our education or our public school system. And for this reason, because now you know, there's there's a way of the church kind of infecting the political system.
You know, Steven, what are.
Your thoughts on what seems to be a career politician putting his own political pressure onto the school system.
Like it's it bothers me. It disgusts me, because like it's one thing to say, well, the guy's got to get elected, he's got to look after himself, right, But when you're in that position, and especially like if this is something that just comes up every time that I get the honor of being on this show, is when it affects children. Nothing hurts me more than when people like this put their own agendas above the well being
of children. And if you are saying, well, I got to look after I got to get reelected, so I need to please this, uh, this this portion of the population and in order to please them, I need to screw over these children metaphorically speaking like that, Just that just hits me hard, because if we are not taking care of our children, if we are not looking after their best interest, what is going to become of this world?
We don't we don't have unlimited time here, like they know that, But the difference is that we're trying to protect our time here and our children are our most vulnerable, most valuable resource, and for us to put political agendas ahead of their well being, their understanding of the world, it is just the most despicable, dare I say evil kind of choice that someone can be making, and it just itles me.
I don't think evil is an inappropriate term, because I think when push comes to show of a lot of pol Titians will cling to the the power, the drug of power, by any means necessary, and it's almost like they can't even help themselves. And this may very well be a case like that, especially when you see the power dynamics of the religious right in this country now.
But I do digress a little bit. I wanted to kind of get Helen's take, because you know, Helen, we talked about the explicit nature of Latin's Daughters for example, and the many other things that are in this book. You have, I know, a lot of opinions on sexuality. For all of our viewers who aren't aware, you can go back and check out episodes of Secular Sexuality. You'll find Helen on there. Helen, you have mentioned before that you know, you came out as queer earlier in your life.
You've got some opinions on sexuality. So what makes something sexually explicit?
So the way I'm like at is that things that are sexually explicit, so we as adults understand the complexities and the nuances of human sexuality. Children do not. Okay, but that doesn't mean you can't teach children about sex. You can expose them to Hey, two men. You know, sometimes you know, women and men like each other, and sometimes you know, people have different the same gender like each other and they fall in love. Like, this isn't
sexually explicit. This is just you know, people being in relationships. And guess what that happens all the time. So there's a we know what the line is. You know, we understand how through science, everybody how psychologically you know, we developed from childhood development, childhood psychology into pre prebeussens through puberty, you know, adolescents into adulthood. We know the track record
of that. And teaching appropriate educational you know, with science backed information about sexuality, about gender, sexual preference, consent would be really great teach you know, how to keep how do you keep yourself to even teaching kids like bodily autonomy, like you can't just go up and like, you know, touch somebody. You need to ask first and you get to negotiate how there was you teach that to like a a five year old, like there has to be
that available. And as a queer person, I know what like because of my own understanding, you know, development and different understanding of these things. When when you live in a very her normative world and you're seen as the deviant because your sexuality is not towing a certain line, you you kind of question, especially when you start coming out and you're developing your sexuality, You go, am I
the dB in, Am I doing something wrong? But then when you realize you really, no, I'm not sexually exploiting children. I'm not exposing children to pornography. I am not doing a sort of grooming or anything like that. I'm just existing as a queer person in the world. That's a difference. But the thing is, though, is that people that haven't had this education. Again we're talking about lack of education of normal development of sexuality. They one think that it's
not so much the Bible, it is queerness. It is people, you know, margin you know, people of color, people that don't fit says white Hero Anglo Saxon. Bullshit. You know, that's that is the message. It hasn't because if you really wanted to say that sexually explicit materials should not be involved in schools, then you would be in the Bible because you would read it and go, oh my god, like like a ten year old cannot read this, Like why should a ten year old read about intests? Like kids,
they're gonna ask questions, and it's because they don't. They one, they haven't read their own book, you know, yeah, a lot of times they haven't. They don't know those stories are in there.
I know, And you know what I think.
I feel like it makes more sense for the representative Patterson to support or for these parents, these fundamentalist Christian parents out there that have a problem with this, It almost makes more sense for them to support the parts that are removed, and to have the abbreviated Bible. You know that seemed in the past to work for Christianity. Again, I wouldn't expect them to know that because they don't know anything about their religion or its history of where
it comes from. So I think that, you know, I really had a problem in this article because the representative only received one complaint and then turned around and used the superintendent of open hostility. And I really don't respect the way that the superintendent responded.
Tracy.
I want to get your take on how should the superintendent have responded. What would have been your response had you been in this position.
So what I'm going to tell you, Jimmy, is concerning what mister Patterson said. If you look up Chapter twenty eight, Section twenty eight point h two of the Texas Education Code, it does not require that the Bible be there. It requires that the Bible be taught about. It has not required that the children can be given access to it. I don't see where he's getting that there's an exemption for the Bible to be allowed to be given to these children. I don't I haven't read the house built
nine hundred in its entirety. But if it says what I've been led to believe, it says sexually explicit material and violence and things of this nature, which we can go in to defining those all you want, but it seems pretty open and shut. The Bible in its entirety should not be allowed. Now, the Bible, not everybody knows this. This mister Patterson may not know it. The Bible is not one book. The Bible is an anthology of books.
So if you want to just you know, toss in Exodus or toss out whatever, just put in or just go through with a black sharpie if you have to redact to what you got to do. If you're really that desperate to get as much content as you can in there, go in with a sharpie. But if you're not gonna do any of the leg work on redacting it, it's not the super attendant's job. Because one he puts in his letter that a parent had contacted him. First
of all, that's a great that's a great representative. Sorry, it's not this representative's job to go complain to the superintendent. But it really seems to me.
That it's just it's a special pleading case because this book definitely is knocked out by the HP nine hundred.
Yeah, absolutely, And and you know, I think that this article just goes to show why government and religion don't mix. Okay, the representative should stay out of the the public schools operations and stop trying to put religion where it doesn't belong. And you know that is something that we believe on the ACA is incredibly important to maintaining you know, free thought and critical thinking