Newsweek

A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma cited a Bible verse as he argued against a bill seeking to ban corporal punishment being used on disabled students in schools. State Senator Shane Jett quoted several verses from the Book of Proverbs on Tuesday as he argued that the bill is in “violation of Scripture.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 1977 decision that corporal punishment did not fall under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, leaving it to states to set their own rules. Some 27 states and the District of Columbia have banned corporal punishment in schools, but Oklahoma is among those that still allow it, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.