Kentucky's senate education committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday that would allow teaching the Bible in public schools.

The proposal would allow schools the option to offer Bible classes as a social studies credit, according to the Associated Press.

Democratic senatot David Boswell, the chief sponsor of the bill, said the lessons would be based on literatary, artistic, cultural, and social aspects of the Bible, and therefore the classes would be constitutionally sound.

Sen. Julian Carroll told the members of the committee that passing the measure was the moral thing to do.

"We took the Bible out of our schools, but we put nothing back," Carroll said. "When we took the Bible out of the schools, we also unfortunately took out that portion of the Bible which relates to life skills, which relates to value systems. And so our students these days do not have the full opportunity, in my judgment, to be taught those life skills and value judgments that keep them out of our penitentiaries ..."