Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed legislation mandating Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms beginning Sept. 1 despite the threat of litigation from civil liberties groups.
Abbott’s office said the governor signed the measure June 21 along with more than 300 other bills he described collectively as protecting “the individual freedoms that our great state was founded on.”
Among them was Senate Bill 10 requiring Decalogue classroom displays of no less than 16-by-20 inches with a “typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom in which the poster or framed copy is displayed.” The law also requires use of a particular Protestant version of the Scriptures.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
The bill was passed by the Legislature in May with an amendment requiring the state to cover any legal expenses school districts incur if sued over the displays.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Freedom from Religion Foundation already have vowed to sue the state if Abbott signed the measure.
The groups described the law as “blatantly unconstitutional” for violating the First Amendment rights of Texas families and school children. They cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1980 ruling in Stone v. Graham preventing Kentucky from placing Ten Commandments displays in its schools.
“We all have the right to decide what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice. Government officials have no business intruding on these deeply personal religious matters. SB-10 will subject students to state-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments for nearly every hour of their public education. It is religiously coercive and interferes with families’ right to direct children’s religious education.”
The law isn’t just discriminatory against those without religious affiliations, the civil liberty organization added.
“Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text they adhere to can differ by religious denomination. The version of Scripture set forth in SB-10, however, is associated only with Protestant faiths and does not reflect the beliefs of most Jewish and Catholic families.”
Phil King
But Republican Texas Sen. Phil King said the law merely restores religious symbols to their rightful place in public schools.
“Few documents in the history of Western civilization and in American history have had a larger impact on our moral and legal code, and our culture, than the Ten Commandments,” said King, a member of Trinity Bible Church in Weatherford, Texas.
The ACLU, Americans United and Freedom from Religion Foundation are also leading legal efforts to block Ten Commandments laws in Arkansas and Louisiana.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals ruled Louisiana’s law unconstitutional on June 20 following a similar ruling by a U.S. district judge in November. The state said it will appeal the decision.
And a federal lawsuit was filed June 11 against the Arkansas Decalogue mandate signed into law by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in April. The action claims the law is religiously coercive and steps on parents’ responsibility for the religious education of their children.
Abbott also signed legislation June 21 enabling school districts to adopt policies allowing voluntary participation in Bible reading and prayer in public schools.
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