This very concerning article posted on Yahoo news covers the legislative maneuvering in Texas to mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. Its a direct attempt of government to push a specific religion on students. And is 100% unconstitutional. Using this “mandate” the state is trying to hide with the language of “moral instruction” what is in reality just another attempt to push Christianity on children while they’re in public schools.
A public school is meant to be a neutral space. A place where children of all backgrounds first learn how to cooperate with and accept people of other cultures and difference. When the state comes in and dictates that the top moral code must be a Christian one, it defines a clear “in-group” and “out-group.” It sends a loud and clear message: “You belong here only if you are religious and your religion should be the one on the wall”.
This decision has had direct negative effect on the lives of educators like Fort Worth theater teacher Gigi Cervantes, who refused to become an agent of the state in what she described as forcing or imposing religious doctrine onto her students. Her resignation was a brave act of dissent. She gave up her job to not be used by a state determined to weaponize the classroom for it’s religious agenda.
The justification offered by proponents of the state mandate like history teacher Dustin Parsons, is that the text is just a “history source”. It’s a weakly camouflaged position to get the religious material on the school walls. It attempts to pass off the Ten Commandments which is a known sacred and exclusive religious text as simply a, “historical universal blueprint for law”.
It’s A Breach of the Establishment Clause
The United States Constitution, looks to shield citizens from the very thing the Texas law is trying to push. The First Amendment is not just permissive; it also prohibits. It contains the Establishment Clause, which forbids the government from establishing, endorsing, or favoring any religion. This is about as open and shut as it gets people.
The act of posting the Ten Commandments a document that literally begins with the command for allegiance to a singular deity: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and then goes on to dictate specific forms of worship is an undeniable violation of this clause. Period. It is not an act of historical context; it is an act of state sponsored endorsement of a religion. In this case Christianity. Their intent is to plant a seed in the minds of impressionable students, implying that the beliefs of the Christian majority are the official beliefs of the government itself.
This constitutional conflict is obvious and blatantly clear. Federal courts have already intervened, issuing orders for numerous Texas school districts NOT to hang the posters, ruling that the mandate violates the religious liberty language outlined in the First Amendment. This is the outcome for similar attempts of these kinds of laws in Arkansas and Louisiana. Texas’s religious mandate is expected to follow this course and end up at the Supreme Court. The aggressive stance taken by Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuits against districts like Galveston ISD for resisting the mandate, only goes to show how strong the state’s commitment is to breaking down the well established constitutional walls between church and state.
What The State Is Doing To Its Children
The worst part of legal maneuvering like this is the unfair conflict and unneeded stress it puts on the children. When a student who is Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or atheist walks into a classroom and sees the state sanctioned moral code posted on the wall, they are immediately confronted with feeling like an “other”. Their family’s history, their moral traditions, and their spiritual beliefs or non beliefs have been directly deemed secondary to the official code on the wall.
As Austin teacher Rachel Preston pointed out, the anxiety centers on students who “don’t identify as Christian feeling unease at the very least.” The classroom is intended and should be a safe space for free thought and intellectual safety. These kinds of laws instead change it into a space where students must navigate their minority status under the faith being pushed on them by state government. Student Madison Creed and her mother, Tiffany Meadows, pointed out the simple truth: “These are public schools, these aren’t Christian schools.” And that’s in it a nut shell the public school cannot and should not function as a church surrogate.
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