God’s gotta go: Montana’s quest to ban obscene material may have some Biblical victims

Just as Montana lawmakers are considering what some are calling the most extreme book banning for public libraries in the country, I was reading a book that got me wondering: If they are serious, would this book make it?

More on that in a moment.

Consider that for as much as Montana loves the image of itself as some rugged Marlboro-man cowboy on the vanguard of freedom, the state’s history isn’t quite so noble. Just a little more than a century ago, the state passed the most regressive sedition law in America, which imprisoned dozens of (mostly) immigrants who dared to criticize America’s slow entry into World War I. This despicable moment in our history wasn’t rectified until nearly a century later, long after the destruction of imprisoning free speakers had rippled through generations of the families who followed.

Heck, in the light of Montana’s conversations about banning books, you may want to rush out and pick up the fascinating book on the subject before it’s banned: “Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West” by Clemens Work, a former University of Montana professor.

The other book that I happened to be reading recently read is a serious, non-fiction book. However, it begins with a strange narrative about angels having sex with the daughters of men, and neither the men nor God were apparently too happy about it.

In a section that deviates from history and moves into poetry, it celebrates smashing the heads of infants against the rocks as a sort of victory anthem and war poetry. Even for the violent, video game culture of today, it seems extreme.

And as part of the story, there’s a passage that Montanans may relate to with a certain amount of terror: A bear attack on a group of 42 boys who had been mocking a bald man. That’s a pretty high price to pay for a bit of mockery, but with a bald spot appearing more prominent every year, I confess I had a bit of empathy for the man.

I was about ready to give up on the lengthy book, but then there came a pretty racy part, including a lot of practical advice about living life, drinking wine and enjoying your wife. In fact, even in the day of social media and shock video, I nearly blushed when it took a discourse describing a woman’s breasts, navel and thighs, rounded like jewels.

Brr-rr-row.

Yet, like any good book, the story moved quickly to other things, including a magician who was persecuted because he performed some clever tricks, not so unlike David Copperfield, where he walked on water or then made what appeared to be wine.

I was pretty enthralled with the story, and it even got explicit enough where I could maybe see where some of our conservative lawmakers were coming from: I mean one of the most prominent stories in the book was about a step-daughter dancing seductively for her step-father, only to blackmail him to kill a religious leader who was apparently on an anti-lust kick.

The book ended, as all epic stories must, with a bunch of fire and demons, including some desperate passages where water turned to blood and it made the previous bear attacks and beheading seems rather quaint.

Of course, every one of these stories and passages is from the same book, the Bible. And last week, when Montana lawmakers started seriously considering an obscenity law for public libraries, it struck me as both honest and refreshing that religious leaders would show up, not to support the ban, but object to it.

They’re right: Using the draconian and puritanical approach of some of our lawmakers, the Bible should not only be banned, but must be banned based on the number of objectionable passages. And we didn’t even get into what happens with women who are menstruating or what should be done with adulterers (not to give Rep. Bob Phalen any more ideas).

For conservative lawmakers who seem to fret about “wokeness” and “nanny states,” it sure seems like they’re trying hard to stop residents from reading certain words or hearing certain ideas. They don’t seem to trust average citizens or families to discuss the content, even that which is very mature. And nothing seems to more nanny-ish than dictating what can and cannot be read.

For being the alleged word of God, the Bible sure is dirty. And violent. And misogynistic. And cruel.

And holy.

Yet, the bottom line remains: God’s pretty close to getting booted from Montana’s libraries.