Not intentionally, but I’ll still take credit for it? 
I think The Last Temptation of Christ is one of the most religious movies.
What do you use to temp the son of God? You can’t use women, or money, or any of the usual.
So you temp him with the ability to escape his destiny.
And he rejects it! What could be more religious?
You tempt him with the opportunity to live a simple, normal family life instead of a dying a grisly, horrible death after being abandoned by everyone.
When I went to see it, I had to cross a picket line of Concerned Christians who didn’t have a clue what even happens in the movie. 
I wasn’t planning on seeing it (not a big fan of religious pics), but I happened to tune into the local “Christian” station on the drive home one day and the host was going on about the movie, including how badly made and amateurish it was. Now, I had seen just about every Scorsese film at that point, including the student film that he turned into Mean Streets, and not a single one could be called amateurish. So, I had to go see it. The host, needless to say, was a bit off the mark (though it was obviously not made with a big budget). 
But I bet those same CCs were creaming their shorts waiting in line to see Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
Well, since we’re in a correcting mood right now, mostly congruent with the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.
And for that matter, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible is only mostly congruent with the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. There are a few books, such as Sirach, Maccabes, and parts of Daniel, that the Catholics accept, but not most Protestants.
Right. I had a girlfriend years ago, who was a devoted Roman Catholic. Being raised in a Protestant church, and having studied the Bible in Sunday school for years, I was surprised that she had never read it. “Oh, we don’t need to read it; the priest tells us about it.”
Yeah, no. That was just one of the reasons (though there were many) that we eventually broke up.
I’m thinking that some Republicans take the same approach: “I’m a Christian, but reading the Bible is too much bother, so I’ll let somebody else tell me what to think about my faith.”
Like the Constitution: they are convinced what it says is that the world should be arranged the way they like, no need to bother/risk getting confused with figuring out what the actual words mean (especially if you’re a KJV fanboy).
The difference to me, is the classic Protestants would have seen Bible reading and study as not just devotional but going hand-in-hand with educating yourself. The American Religious Right however since they look down on "book learnin’ " wind up not having the tools to make heads or tails of it but they’re actually proud they don’t: really they treat the Bible as basically a fetish object, an amulet to wave around to scare off evil.
And I can fully get the Orthodox/Catholic position of “leave figuring what this really means to trained professionals”, dating back to a time when the the world was mostly nonliterate.
Right-o! 
I don’t get why something like this needs state legislation. Why can’t it be handled at the school-district level?
The far right remind me of this very correct meme.
It’s not an amulet to them. The Bible, which they have not and cannot read, is their idol, their deity.
Because it’s easier to ensure you’re abusing the right sort of people if you only have to deal with one group. If you divide the group up, you run the chance of someone screwing up and actually helping someone in need.
You beat me to it 
They also cherry pick quotes out of it that they use to justify their biases.
Because then somebody might make the choice you don’t want them to make. They should only have the freedom to make approved choices.
My bad. I asked a reasonable question. I have so much to learn…
More importantly, since they are not able/inclined to read it, it is a pretty simple and natural task to carve out the pages to hold a pistol.
Careful now.
@Monty and @Horatius answers are on point, but it is also important to remember that ‘local control’ is only allowed when the it is the correct type of control.
Leading to my local police department (Kansas City, MO) being the only one in the state under state control (although they are apparently attempting to retake control of the St Louis one).
Yeah, we didn’t read the Bible the way Protestants did when I was in elementary school, but I thought it was really weird how people would just memorize verses and rattle them off without any thought of what was behind the words. We learned the stories and reading it later in life, I didn’t feel I’d missed much. I haven’t sat down and read (or memorized!) all the Greek myths either.
Greek myths were a lot more fun. Christian mythology always seemed to want to take itself too seriously.
My favorite was Norse, though.
Christian mythology is boring. I’m glad we didn’t have to read the bible!