Three Houston-area mothers are taking a novel approach to fighting the Texas law mandating posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
The women are relying on the state’s laws on required parental consent and on the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act to say Senate Bill 10 passed by the Texas Legislature is illegal and cannot stand.
Under Senate Bill 10, public school districts aren’t required to purchase Ten Commandments posters, but they must display them if they’re donated. Some evangelical and conservative groups have launched campaigns to purchase and donate the posters to districts across the state.
The lawsuit filed last week in Harris County argues two things:
First, the requirement to post the Ten Commandments violates a parental rights amendment voters added to the Texas Constitution last November. That mandate says parents have the “right to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”
“The state has changed what I teach my children about religion, how I teach it, and when I teach it,” said Audrey Rosa Nath, whose two children attend schools in Houston Independent School District. “I used to spend (my time) teaching them what our family believes. Now I spend it rebutting a text the state ordered into their classroom, in a room where I am not present and cannot answer.”
Second, the moms argue Senate Bill 10 violates the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law by Gov. George W. Bush in 1999 and modeled after the national Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
According to both the national state acts, government may not substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion unless the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.
The Houston-area women contend they and their children face imminent harm with the start of school two weeks away. Emily Roth, one of the plaintiffs, tried last spring to have Spring Branch Independent School District remove Ten Commandments posters from classrooms but the school board unanimously voted against her request.
Roth and Nath are joined in the lawsuit by Sanjam Kaur Sohal, who is Sikh. Roth describes her family as irreligious. Nath is raising her children across multiple religious traditions, including Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism and Quakerism.
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