The bills introduced by Republicans in the Texas Senate would require the ten commandments to be shown in public schools and would allow schools to divide time for students to read the Bible, in the last effort of legislators in the states for states Infuse religious doctrine in public education.
“The ten commandments are part of our history of Texas and American,” said Senator Phil King, the main author of the bill, in a statement on Monday, and added that “if our students do not know the ten commandments, they will never understand .
Meanwhile, another bill was presented that would allow school districts to adopt policies that allow a period of prayer and reading of the Scriptures or “other religious text” with the consent of the parents.
“Our schools are not free areas of God,” said the author of the bill, Senator Mayes Middleton, in a statement, while thanks President Donald Trump and the lieutenant of Texas Lieutenant, Dan Patrick, for “doing of prayer in public schools a maximum priority.
A previous impulse to obtain a bill of ten commandments approved in the Texas Legislature failed in 2023 due to time limitations, but Patrick has said that among its main concerns for the current session, which began last month, it will be to guarantee the Success of legislation. He also applauded Louisiana, which last year became the first state to demand that the ten commandments be exhibited in all classrooms of public and university schools.
Although Louisiana’s law entered into force on January 1, its implementation remains in Limbo after a coalition of parents demanded in a federal court, arguing that the requirement interferes with its right of the first amendment to raise their children with Any religious doctrine they choose. A federal appeal court is expected to declare the matter after a judge of the lower court concluded in November that Louisiana had not offered “no constitutional way to show the ten commandments.”
King said Be believes that his bill faces scrutiny after a 2022 Supreme Court rul The games. The ruling of the conservative majority court adopted a different approach when examining “historical practices and understandings” to interpret whether the first amendment was being violated.
“The legislation agrees with the history and traditions of our State and Nation,” King said, adding that students “will appreciate the role of the ten commandments in our inheritance.”
The Supreme Court previously occupied the issue of the ten commandments in public schools in 1980, when it annulled a Kentucky law as unconstitutional.
Louisiana’s law and the introduction of similar bills throughout the country could promote the issue before the Superior Court once again.
A Kentucky bill presented last month would allow public schools to publish the ten commandments, but would not make it a requirement. An Ohio bill would require schools to select a list of nine historical documents to show in the classrooms, the ten commandments between the options. And in Georgia, a bill presented last week would force public primary and secondary schools to place copies of the ten commandments in certain places, such as the main entrance of a building.
Ten Similar Commandments Law and North Dakota bills were discussed in recent weeks, while a bill in Dakota del Sur failed Monday in the Chamber in a vote of 37-31.
Some Republican legislators were among those who voted against the South Dakota bill that would have forced public schools to show the ten commandments, with those Republican legislators arguing that the bill could have been stronger and other restless With the government creating such mandate.
The American Union of Civil Liberties, which supports the demand of parents against the law of ten commandments of Louisian to public education.
“Public schools are not Sunday schools, and today’s vote guarantees that our public school classroom South, in a statement.
Texas’s ten commandment bill could face an easier path ahead in the Legislature controlled by Republicans because it was previously introduced in the session and is a higher priority among Republican leaders, after a deadline was lost To advance in 2023., a Republican, published in X last month in reference to a draft law reintroduced: “Let’s do it.”
Even so, Republicans can expect the opposition of the Democrats who have said that the State should focus on the complete financing of public schools instead of wedge issues.
“This is a draft divisive law that distracts real solutions for Texans,” Senator Sarah Eckhardt said. “Segregation along religious lines remains segregation, and that is the reason to separate the Church and the State.”
