As the Texas Senate convened its second special session Aug. 15 — primarily to gerrymander five more Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatened to remove anyone who doesn’t stand for the invocation.
Sen. Angela Paxton — estranged wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — delivered a Christian invocation “in the name of Jesus, who has saved us, who keeps us safe, and who is coming again.” The Paxtons are members of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, although she recently filed for divorce, “on biblical grounds.”
Angela Paxton prays to open the special session of the Texas Senate Aug. 15. (screencap)
After her prayer, Patrick admonished members of the public gallery who had remained seated: “For those of you who didn’t stand, next time you come to the gallery, you stand for the invocation. It’s respecting the Senate. If you don’t stand for the invocation, I’ll have you removed. We asked you to stand. I’ve never seen a gallery ever have any members in my 17 years of people who refused to stand for the invocation. It will not be tolerated.”
Patrick is a conservative Episcopalian who boasts on his website: “I placed ‘In God We Trust’ in the State Senate. I placed ‘Under God’ in our State Pledge.”
The issue of public prayers to open legislative sessions has been hotly debated for decades at all levels of government. Critics of such prayers contend the practice violates the First Amendment because it establishes or endorses one religion over all others or even over no religious belief.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the practice of legislative prayer, saying it doesn’t violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as long as it doesn’t promote or denigrate a specific faith.
Whether anyone may be compelled to stand for such public prayer is another matter, however.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation objected to Patrick’s demand and cited the constitutional principle that no official may compel symbolic acts of faith or deference, according to the 1943 U.S. Supreme Court case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. That case established that the government cannot force citizens to express agreement with certain political, nationalistic or religious opinions.
However, as presiding officer over the Senate, the lieutenant governor has broad powers to enforce rules and his understanding of decorum.
Three days later, on Monday, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said Democrats who had arrest warrants issued against them for fleeing the state to break quorum could not leave the House chamber unless they agreed to having police escorts everywhere they go. At least one House member refused that condition and is camped out in the chamber until Wednesday.
Emotions are running high in both chambers of the Texas Legislature as Republicans seek to redraw Congressional maps in a blatant gerrymander to give Republicans five more seats in the U.S. House. Texas Democrats in the state House last week fled the state to keep the chamber from having a quorum able to vote.
“Citizens have the right to attend legislative proceedings without being coerced into religious observance.”
As for Patrick’s demand that everyone stand for a Christian prayer, the Freedom from Religion Foundation says that’s not the way it works.
“Citizens have the right to attend legislative proceedings without being coerced into religious observance,” FFRF legal counsel Chris Line wrote to Patrick. “Ordering attendees to stand during a religious exercise is unconstitutionally compelling their participation in religious activity. Conditioning access to government on religious conformity violates the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.”
Chris Line
The group reminded Patrick that he once walked out of the Texas Senate chamber during its first Muslim prayer in 2007, saying at the time that even standing respectfully would appear to be an “endorsement” of the prayer.
Line said such hypocrisy is par for the course for Patrick, who refers to himself as a “Christian first, conservative second.”
“This is supposed to be a country with religious freedom — which necessarily includes freedom from religion,” said foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Government officials cannot threaten citizens with expulsion from their own legislature for declining to participate in a prayer they do not believe in and that shouldn’t even be taking place in the first place.”
Patrick currently serves as the chair of President Donald Trump’s “Religious Liberty Commission,” which has been widely panned as pandering to evangelicals at the expense of all other believers.