Virginia School Board Removes Sherlock Holmes Novel as Derogatory to Mormons

With Mitt Romney and John Huntsman running for President, a hit Broadway show and the conviction of steroidal polygamist Warren Jeffs, the Mormon religion is almost as hot as fiscal austerity.

Now come reports out of Virginia, home of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and country hams, that alleged slights to Mormonism by fictional and long dead British detectives will not be tolerated. This is a great relief. If imaginary literary figures present a threat to this religion and its political progeny, just think what the blogosphere will do to them. JL

Douglas Stanglin reports in USA Today:

A Virginia county school board is removing a Sherlock Holmes novel from the sixth-grade reading list after a parent's complant that it is derogatory toward Mormons, The Charlottesville Daily Progress reports.
The Victorian-era book, A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was deemed inappropriate for the age group, but it will be available for older students.

The school board of Albermarle County, where Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home is located, took the action in response to a challenge from the parent of a middle-school student.

Brette Stevenson had told the board that the book has been used to introduce the mystery genre and the character of Holmes.

"This is our young students' first inaccurate introduction to an American religion," Stevenson told the board, according to the newspaper.

Although the newspaper did not indicate that any particular passage from the novel had been singled out, here is one extract from Chapter 3.

"(John Ferrier) had always determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land of the Saints."

Stevenson suggested replacing the book with Doyle's fifth novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, which, she said, is a better introduction to mystery, the newspaper says.