Fake News: California Gov. Jerry Brown NOT To Ban Sales Of The Bible

Is California governor Jerry Brown preparing to ban sales of the bible? No, that’s not true. The claim was made by a website that habitually takes some real news and then adds a few paragraphs and an inflammatory headline to make it sound much, much worse than what is really going on in order to get people to click and share the article on social media.

The misleading story was published as an article on April 20, 2018 by YourNewsWire under the headline “California Gov. Jerry Brown To Ban Sales Of The Bible” …

In reality Assembly Bill 2943 is not an order from the Governor but an initiative from California Assembly Member Evan Low that still has to be voted on before it becomes law. It also doesn’t ban the bible (or any religious books). The full text of the bill doesn’t even mention the words “bible”, “book” or “text” at all.

Selling bibles does not fall under this prohibition and nor would the sale of texts generally disapproving or criticizing homosexuality. It would ban advertisting for such books, therapies etc. if it was done with the explicitly stated goal of changing people’s sexual orientation (i.e. gay conversion therapy etc.).

A bible ban would go directly against the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and would be struck down in a heartbeat by the Supreme Court.

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