Tennessee governor vetoes bill to make the Bible the state's official book

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The governor of Tennessee on Thursday vetoed a bill that aimed to make the Bible the state's official book.

Republican Bill Haslam said the bill "trivializes the Bible, which I believe is a sacred text." The attorney general warned that the bill would violate the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions, but it narrowly passed in both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly. Sponsors said it was not an endorsement of religion, The Associated Press reports, but a nod to the significance of the Bible in the state's history.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.