Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday directed most of the state’s schools to display copies of the Ten Commandments starting September 1.
The Texas Law
Texas S.B. 10, which takes effect beginning next month, requires public or secondary schools in The Lone Star State to display the Ten Commandments in each classroom. Schools can purchase Ten Commandments displays or opt to display any privately donated copies.
“From the beginning, the Ten Commandments have been irrevocably intertwined with America’s legal, moral, and historical heritage,” said Attorney General Paxton in a statement. “Schools not enjoined by ongoing litigation must abide by S.B. 10 and display the Ten Commandments.”
He added,
The woke radicals seeking to erase our nation’s history will be defeated. I will not back down from defending the virtues and values that built this country.
S.B. 10 passed through the Texas Legislature by overwhelming margins. The Texas House approved the bill in an 82-46 vote on May 25, and the state Senate passed the bill by a 21-10 margin on May 28.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law on June 20.
Legal Challenge
Far-left legal groups challenged the law’s constitutionality almost immediately.
Sixteen Texas families of different religious backgrounds filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The families are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
On August 20, Judge Samuel Frederick Biery Jr., a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the law in several of Texas’ school districts.
It should be noted that much of Judge Biery Jr.’s opinion reads less like a judicial opinion, and more like a creed developed by a group of hippies.
“Though most of the eight billion Homo sapiens have no knowledge they are travelling 66,000 miles per hours around the sun, they have evolved over several million years to be the only species which knows it will die,” the 77-year-old judge opined for no discernable reason.
He also quoted Kenny Chesney’s 2008 hit, “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven,” writing, “Everybody wanna go to heaven, but nobody wanna go now.”
In his conclusion, he pleaded, “May humankind of all faiths, beliefs and non-beliefs be reconciled one to another.”
What’s any of that got to do with the constitutionality of S.B. 10? Nobody knows.
Judge Biery apparently felt comfortable making a statement endorsing evolutionary theory, which has numerous theological implications – and is itself a religious theory – in a judicial opinion supposedly mandating a strict separation of church and state in government.
According to the attorney general’s office, the only school districts affected by Judge Biery’s injunction are Alamo Heights, North East, Austin, Cypress Fairbanks, Lackland, Lake Travis, Fort Bend, Houston, Dripping Springs, Plano, and Northside.
All other school districts must comply with the law’s requirements as of September 1, per the attorney general’s guidance.
First Liberty Institute has also sent a letter to 1,200 Texas school superintendents encouraging their compliance with the law.
“Displays such as the Ten Commandments that are part of the history and tradition of America are presumed to be Constitutional,” said Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO and Chief Counsel at First Liberty. “Displaying the Ten Commandments – a symbol of law and moral conduct with both religious and secular significance – is a longstanding national tradition as a matter of law.”
Attorney General Paxton has already appealed the injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
U.S. Supreme Court Precedent
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Stone v. Graham that a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom violated the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
However, the Court’s decision relied on the Lemon test, stemming from the Court’s 1971 ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman. According to that test, a state statute must meet three requirements to comply with the Establishment Clause:
- It must have a secular purpose.
- It cannot promote or restrict religious beliefs or practices.
- It cannot foster excessive church-state entanglement.
In 2022, however, the Court formally overruled the Lemon test in a case brought by Coach Joe Kennedy in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. Justice Neil Gorusch concluded for the majority,
In place of Lemon and the endorsement test, this Court has instructed that the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by “reference to historical practices and understandings.”
Therefore, if a case concerning the constitutionality of a statute requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools came before the Supreme Court today, it is quite possible the Court would overrule Stone v. Graham and uphold the statute.
American History
Though the Left often attempts to argue that a government display of any kind of religious content automatically violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, our Founding Fathers understood that religion – particularly the Christian religion – is essential to a healthy society.
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” wrote President George Washington in his Farewell Address. “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”
President John Adams wrote in his letter to the Massachusetts militia in 1798,
We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by … morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition and Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Next Steps
The Fifth Circuit will hopefully review Judge Biery’s strange opinion soon. In the meantime, it’s good that most Texas schools will be displaying the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. The Ten Commandments, after all, are both a wise moral code and an integral part of American history. Texas S.B. 10 may give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to revisit its decision in Stone.
The case is Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District.
Related articles and resources:
Bring Your Bible to School Day
Judge Partially Blocks Enforcement of Arkansas Ten Commandments Law
Judge Temporarily Blocks Ten Commandments in Classrooms, Louisiana Will Appeal
Photo from Getty Images.
