Lawmaker pulls bill to make Holy Bible Louisiana's official state book

[cbayer]

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/louisiana_bible_state_book.html


The Louisiana House of Representatives was scheduled to take up a bill to declare the Holy Bible that official state book on Monday evening.

Julia O'Donoghue, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Julia O'Donoghue, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on April 21, 2014 at 7:01 PM, updated April 21, 2014 at 11:58 PM

Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, scrapped his proposal to make the Holy Bible the official state book before it could go to a full vote of the state House of Representatives Monday evening. The bill had become a distraction, he said.

In introducing the legislation, Carmody always maintained he was not taking steps to establish a state religion, but rather to educate people. Critics have accused him of foisting faith inappropriately into the government sphere. Others thought such a designation would trivialize the Bible and its importance.

Initially, Carmody had just been intending to designate a specific, historic copy of the Bible, which he thought could be found in the Louisiana State Museum, as the official state book. But lawmakers amended Carmody's legislation two weeks ago to propose making any copy of the "Holy Bible" the official state book.

Designating the Holy Bible the official state book would have been largely a symbolic gesture. It wouldn't have affected how the government is run or Louisiana residents' day-to-day lives. Louisiana citizens would have not, for example, be made to read the Holy Bible if it had been designated the official book of Louisiana.

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