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As more and more states pass laws targeting "pornographic material" in books and online, they are repeatedly running up against a problem: The Bible has not just a few passages that could be considered indecent.
Virginia, for instance, passed a law in July requiring websites where a portion of the material hosted is "harmful to minors" — which in this case would include pornography — to verify that its users are over 18 years old. That law does not apply to social media platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, and Reddit, which allow pornography to be posted, according to the Virginia Mercury.
But it would apply to some other websites, a fact that Reddit users have picked up on. In a Reddit post in r/Virginia, a subsection of the site for people in the state to post about what's happening in their community, one user encouraged people to use the new law to file consumer complaints to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares.
In the post, which has at least 2,000 upvotes, the user cited a passage from Ezekiel that appears on Bible.com, which says a woman "lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose semen was like that of horses. So she longed to do the sinful things she did when she was young in Egypt, when young men caressed and fondled her breasts. "
The post also listed six other websites the user said were "failing in requiring age verification before accessing pornographic material" from the Bible.
"They ALL need to follow the law!" the post says. "Think of the children."
Bible.com did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.
The website Pornhub has pulled access to users in several states — like Virginia, Utah, and Mississippi — that have recently passed similar laws requiring porn websites to verify a user's age. In Louisiana, Pornhub is requiring visitors to verify their age with a state ID, in a sort of malicious compliance with a new anti-porn law there.
Utah also signed the Sensitive Materials in Schools Act into law in March 2022, which banned books with "pornographic or indecent" material from schools.
In response, one parent of a Davis High School student in Utah filed a complaint in December 2022 against the school, claiming that the state legislature should ban the Bible from schools because it includes "incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide."
"Get this PORN out of our schools! If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk," the parent wrote in the complaint.
The Davis School District initially removed the Bible from school libraries after a review determined it did include "vulgar" content. But the school board unanimously reversed its decision after a review by an appeal committee determined the text has " significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains," the AP reported.
Critics of these kinds of laws say they have been used to disproportionately target books written by people of color and books with LGBTQ themes.
