As Republican-dominated states seek to require displays of the Ten Commandments in school classrooms, critics are noting some odd similarities in the language of the bills. It seems possible — even likely — the bills are originating from a common place.
Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas have passed legislation requiring public schools to display the decalogue in public school classrooms, and 28 similar bills have been filed in 18 states in the past year. The three bills already passed are being challenged in state and federal courts.
All these bills challenge established constitutional precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court litigated the question of requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham, in which a Kentucky law was struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Yet evangelicals and other Christian nationalists are eager to challenge that court precedent and — as with Roe v. Wade — get a redo with a more sympathetic court.
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks calls what’s happening a “coordinated strategy” to “inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms.”
But just how coordinated? And if coordinated, by whom?
David Barton with Matt Krause testifying at the Texas Capitol.
According to recent analysis by The 74, the majority of these bills contain similar language and demands that point to the bills being inspired by legislation mills. Such “model legislation” has been put forward before by affiliates of Focus on the Family and by WallBuilders, the far-right group led by David Barton. WallBuilders claims its purpose is to focus “on the original intent of our Founding Fathers and the proper understanding of the institutional separation of church and state,” helping educators “know the truth about our Founding Fathers and our Christian history as a nation.”
Barton lives in Texas, where a Ten Commandments bill that previously failed in the Texas Legislature was carried one state east and enacted as law in Louisiana. This year, that same bill came back to Texas and was adopted and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.
That was part of a wider range of education-related bills Abbot signed into law on the same day. SB-13 allows parents to see what books their children are checking out and increases the power of advisory boards to remove books from school libraries. SB-12 rolls back DEI programs in hiring. SB-11 allows students to pray and read Scripture in schools — also a favorite goal of conservative evangelicals that is being challenged in court again.
While it could be said the Ten Commandments bills are a distraction amid a wider sweep of anti-DEI legislation (especially if the courts quickly undermine the bills), they are a desired goal for Christian nationalists to roll back secular limitations on religion.
And as with the recent sweep of anti-transgender legislation adopted in most red states, the Ten Commandments bills have more in common than they likely would if crafted independently.
The Ten Commandments bills have more in common than they likely would if crafted independently.
“A dozen bills specify, for example, that the Ten Commandments displays must be hung in a ‘conspicuous’ location,” writes journalist Mark Keierleber. “Another 11 specify they should be at least 11-by-14 inches in size. Nearly all of the bills — 25 — mandate a Christian version of the religious and ethical directives be displayed as a ‘poster or framed.’ The 74 tallied 96 instances where bills introduced this year match Project Blitz’s model legislation, including template bills to require the Ten Commandments or the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ in public schools.”
Project Blitz appears to be Ground Zero for the Ten Commandments bills and related legislation.
This is nothing new. In 2018, The Guardian reported on Project Blitz: “A playbook known as Project Blitz, developed by a collection of Christian groups, has provided state politicians with a set of off-the-shelf pro-Christian ‘model bills.’ Some legislation uses verbatim language from the ‘model bills’ created by a group called the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, set up by a former Republican congressman which has a stated aim to ‘protect religious freedom, preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promote prayer.’”
Back in 2017 and 2018 — during Trump’s first presidency — at least 75 bills were brought forward in more than 20 states that appeared to have been modeled on the playbook, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
AU’s fact sheet on Project Blitz explains: “One of the key figures behind Project Blitz is David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders. He’s a revisionist historian who incorrectly advocates that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, argues that the government should ‘regulate homosexuality’ like cigarettes, and falsely claims that ‘our founding documents were based on the Bible.’”
The 74 concludes: “Barton isn’t just a primary pitchman for the Ten Commandments law in Texas, his home state, an investigation by The 74 reveals. His fingerprints appear on 28 bills that have cropped up before the legislatures in 18 states this year. A data analysis of the bills exposes how their language, structure and requirements are inherently identical. In dozens of instances, they match model legislation pitched by Barton verbatim.”
Related articles:
Federal judge strikes down Texas Ten Commandments law
David Barton is still wrong: American exceptionalism endangers America | Opinion by Rodney Kennedy
The Ten Commandments and the tyranny of minority rule | Analysis by Mara Richards Bim