George Orwell, in his classic novel 1984, highlights an important aspect of full-blown authoritarianism: the presentation of lies as truth. In the first few pages of Orwell’s book, readers are introduced to the ironically named “Ministry of Truth” which features on its façade the phrases:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
I pondered the opening to this book as I sat in various rooms at the Texas Legislature for 22 hours waiting to speak in the Public Education Committee to oppose SB-10. This bill and its identical companion bill HB-2696 mandate that every single public K-12 classroom in Texas post the Ten Commandments if such a poster is donated to the school.
Testimony in the Public Education Committee came at the end of an already full day in which the full House was in session, and testimony on SB-10 was the last thing on the docket. The bill was introduced by Rep. Candy Noble, R-Lucas, at 4 a.m. Yes, you read that right: 4 in the morning.
As Austin-based composer Alex Shawver noted in his testimony two hours later:
I have to question the faith and motivation of anyone who wants to use the full power of the state to force a chunk a King James text to hang over ever public school student’s head in every classroom across the state and when our last opportunity to testify against it is at 6 a.m., it doesn’t feel like democracy is out in the open as it should be.
The Texas Legislature is disproportionately populated by Christian nationalists who want to impose their version of Christianity on the rest of us. Recently released research by PRRI shows only 10% of Americans and 13% of Texans are adherents of Christian nationalism (another 20% of Americans and 23% of Texans are sympathetic to the Christian nationalist movement). As frightening as this is, those who want to see the country turned into a Christian theocracy hold a minority view.
“Those who want to see the country turned into a Christian theocracy hold a minority view.”
SB-10 is a clear example of the tyranny of minority rule by these individuals.
The Texas Republicans who align with Christian nationalism are aided by those in the Legislature who remain silent when bills like SB-10 are put forward and when the committees hearing these bills keep the public waiting for nearly 24 hours to offer public testimony.
Our democratic norms are crumbling under minority rule.
For the normal person just trying to feed their family and find a little joy in life, it’s impossible to fully recognize that we’ve entered emergency territory. And that’s the point.
The populus is being bombarded daily by executive orders, bills and rhetoric from national and state Republicans operating within the framework of Christian nationalism. They intend to confuse, enrage and dishearten the most rational of minds into submission to their reading of the Bible.
The power worshippers
The rhetoric and legal theory behind SB-10 and Republicans’ open disdain for the will of the people echo what is happening in the United States at a much grander scale.
Candy Noble
In introducing the bill, Rep. Noble deployed the standard talking points of Christian nationalists when arguing for instituting a theocracy in America:
The Bible was the most often used textbook for generations of Americans. But not only are the Ten Commandments foundational to our educational system, which they are, they’re also foundational to our American judicial system being cited favorably in over 500 court cases. In fact, all Ten Commandments appear somewhere in statutory code, and they are engraved on the very doors that the United States Supreme Court justices face in their own courtroom. The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American education for almost three centuries before the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Leman v. Kurtzman that eventually led to their removal from our public school classrooms. That decision has now been overturned, and rightly so. The court now looks to America’s history and tradition for whether government may recognize our religious heritage. Nothing is more deep rooted in the fabric of our American tradition of education than the Ten Commandments.
Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, and Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, were the only two on the committee to challenge Noble on the constitutionality of the bill. Most notable in these exchanges was the back and forth between Talarico and Noble on the separation of church and state.
Noble doesn’t believe there is such a thing. In response to being asked if she believes in the separation of church and state, she flippantly responded, “That’s an interesting question” before parroting the Christian nationalist-approved talking points.
Because the phrase “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in our founding documents, but rather in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, Christian nationalists say there is no such thing. They twist words and feign ignorance on the topic even though they know good and well that Jefferson, quoting the First Amendment in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, is referring to it when he speaks of a “wall”:
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
Noble offered the Christian nationalist legal theory that after the Kennedy v. Bremerton ruling, the “history and traditions” test used by the U.S. Supreme Court means all America is now to be subjected to a minority expression of Christianity — one that is Calvinistic, patriarchal and high-control.
While the court did, in fact, reiterate its commitment to the “history and traditions” test (meaning there must be a balance between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment rather than a deference to disestablishment) Noble and others pushing the bounds of the ruling fail to note the court repeatedly made note that the situation would have been different in Kennedy v. Bremerton if Coach Kennedy had been “leading prayers with the team or before any other captive audience.”
“Such a nuanced reading of the Kennedy case does not serve the purposes of the religious minority currently in power.”
But such a nuanced reading of the Kennedy case does not serve the purposes of the religious minority currently in power. That minority wants a theocracy — and not just any kind of theocracy, but one whose effects replicate the kind of stratified, hierarchical society the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement fought to overturn.
Noble and others insist that with SB-10, Texas is simply restoring this piece of our heritage to its rightful position within public school classrooms. Under questioning by Talarico and Bryant, Noble insisted her motives were solely related to the historical relevance of the Ten Commandments and not in any way related to her wanting to impose her version of Christianity on other people’s children.
But both Bryant and Talarico pointed out the duplicity contained within her remarks: one minute she cited the historical importance of the Ten Commandments and the next she lamented that the display of the Ten Commandments were necessary to bring “morality” back into public schools.
But the tyranny of minority rule means the Christian nationalists in power dictate the rules, the rhetoric and even what constitutes historical “facts.”
So-called ‘experts’
The revisionist history that says the U.S. always has been a “Christian nation” was backed up by the so-called “experts” Chair Brad Buckley, R-Salado, invited forward to offer testimony in support of the bill.
First to speak was Elijah O’Neal, manager of education for the American Journey Experience Museum in Irving, which is part of the nonprofit Mercury One. Mercury One was founded in 2011 by self-proclaimed historian David Barton. The museum pushes the false narrative that the U.S. was founded as a “Christian nation” and its frequent lecturers are David Barton, his son Tim Barton and former Fox host Glenn Beck.
David Barton with Matt Krause
Next up was attorney Matt Krause who currently serves as a Tarrant County commissioner and works for First Liberty Institute, the organization defending legislation across the country intended to chip away at the separation of church and state. First Liberty Institute represents the state of Louisiana in its bid to post the Ten Commandments in all classrooms in that state. They also litigated on behalf of Coach Kennedy in Kennedy v. Bremerton. Krause is a graduate of Liberty University.
Finally, David Barton provided his “expertise” as a self-proclaimed historian. Barton is well-known in Christian nationalist circles for peddling the notion that the U.S. was founded as a “Christian nation” and that there is no such thing as a separation of church and state. Barton has no credentials as a historian and in 2012 the conservative publisher of his book on Thomas Jefferson pulled it from publication after real historians from across the political spectrum criticized the conspiracies presented in it. At the time, the publisher noted, “As we got into it, our conclusion was that the criticisms were correct. There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion — that were not supported at all.”
It’s worth noting that O’Neal and Krauss graduated from Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, and that Barton graduated from Oral Roberts University, founded by its namesake Oral Roberts. These institutions teach from what they consider a “biblical worldview” that sees science in conflict with religion.
The problem with presenting these three witnesses as “experts” should be obvious.
Content experts — whether in history, science or another field — actually study in the field in which they are seeking to be experts (unlike Barton, who was a religious studies major) and they generally study at nonsectarian institutions. Experts need to develop their knowledge set at nonsectarian institutions so they are exposed to the widest possible knowledge there is about a given topic rather than only studying a subject from a “biblical worldview.”
The only thing someone graduating from one of these schools is an expert in is a limited reading of the Bible. The fact that the Republicans on the Texas House Public Education panel treated these witnesses as the knowledge-keepers of factually accurate information is in keeping with Republicans at the national level.
In a world in which a conspiracy theorist like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who claims vaccines cause autism is appointed and confirmed as the secretary of Health and Human Services, it makes sense that David Barton is referred to as an “expert” on U.S. history.
Thankfully, Rep. Bryant and Rep. Talarico called out the fact that these “experts” are actually paid activists who work for religious organizations and stand to benefit from the passage of this bill into law.
Democracy dies in the dark
Once the state’s witnesses were dismissed, we plebians had an opportunity to speak just as the sun was coming up. Of course, holding public testimony on a bill in the early morning hours deliberately limits who can be present. Although, this hearing was better than most happening in the Senate in which the announcement for public testimony happens on the same day in which the committee will hear the testimony.
Dan Hinkle
All this is intended to make it hard for citizens to participate in the democratic process. That process came up when, in a turn of events, two of the witnesses opposed to the bill posed questions to Rep. Jeff Leach, R-McKinney, which he answered.
Baptist Dan Hinkle questioned Leach on why Texas is rushing to push this bill through while Louisiana’s bill is tied up in the courts. Before Leach answered, one of the other witnesses interjected asking him to consider, if he put this before voters in the state of Texas, “Do you believe you would have the majority vote to put this into law?”
Leach responded:
Thanks for the question. That’s not how our representative democracy works. We’ve all been elected to represent our districts and do what we think is right, and we’ll stand for reelection if we decide to do so. I do believe, though, that we — this is a laboratory of democracy — and we’re going to find out the answers as to “can we do this.” I believe this bill — what we do here — is going to end up, very likely, in front of the United States Supreme Court.
Hinkle then interjected, “Well the Louisiana version will.”
To which Leach responded:
Sure. One of the versions will. I know a number of states are trying this. But we truly are — the states are laboratories of democracy. And so what we’re doing here is part of this collective experience, and I’m glad to be here with you and I’m glad y’all testified.
By the time I offered my testimony, I was in tears. I spoke at 5:30 a.m. after waiting for nearly 24 hours. It was clear the Republicans on the panel — led by Noble and Leach — intended to push this bill through no matter the public outcry, so I ditched what I had written and spoke from the heart:
I know the whole point of this as Rep. Leach has made clear is to get it to the Supreme Court and nothing anyone says tonight will actually matter. So I’ll just tell you what I said to my daughter before I got on a plane yesterday morning. She asked why I was going and why I do the work I do. And I said, “Because you have friends at your school who are Muslim and who are Hindu” — because she goes to a very diverse school — “and there are people in our Legislature who want to make them feel bad by putting this up on the wall because they don’t believe the same things we do.” And she couldn’t understand why. And, as a Christian, that’s my question to you. Why would you do this?
The tyranny of minority rule emboldens Christian nationalists in Texas and across the country to pass legislation the majority oppose rather than put it up for a public vote. This is why Texas Republicans refused to put school vouchers on the ballot. This is why they refuse to put things like the posting of the Ten Commandments on the ballot.
This is the tyranny of minority rule.
The House Public Education Committee passed SB-10 on to the House floor, but they did so in a vote behind closed doors after those who had waiting nearly 24 hours to testify went home.
Note: I’ve curated what I consider some of the “best of” video clips from both the Texas House and Senate Committees meetings so that the general public can witness the arrogance and tyranny on full display for themselves. You can find these clips here and here.
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.
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