For Republican officials eager to impose the Ten Commandments on public school students, the last year has been quite busy. Louisiana, for example, approved such a law, which was rejected in court last June. A couple of months later, a similar law in Arkansas also faced legal setbacks.
Around the same time, the GOP’s crusade advanced undeterred in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott signed a measure that required every public school classroom in the state to display the Ten Commandments. The law mandated that the religious display had to be in a “conspicuous” location, with text that could be seen from anywhere in the room.
Five months later, the law was partially blocked by a federal district court. This week, proponents of government-sponsored religion fared far better with a federal appeals court. The New York Times reported:
A federal appeals court on Tuesday narrowly upheld a Texas law that requires public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
By 9-to-8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the law does not violate the separation of church and state, reversing two lower court decisions. The court also ruled the measure does not restrict parents’ right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
The Fifth Circuit is known as the nation’s most far-right appeals court, and it solidified its reputation in this case: The Republican-appointed judges’ majority ruling suggested the First Amendment was really only designed to prevent official recognition of the Church of England, which is ahistorical nonsense contradicted by everything we know about American history, the Constitution and its formation.
Time will tell what becomes of the case, but in the interim, it’s worth appreciating why policies like these are legal, political and theological messes.
For example, Protestants, Jews and Catholics each honor the commandments, but the different faith traditions number and word the Decalogue in different ways. It’s not the job of politicians in state governments to choose which version (if any) deserves an official endorsement to be imposed on public school children.
The legal dimension to this is every bit as jarring. Indeed, when officials in Kentucky approved a similar law nearly a half-century ago, the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that Ten Commandments displays in public schools were unconstitutional.
The Decalogue, the justices ruled in Stone v. Graham, is “undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths” and displaying them “serves no … educational function.”
So why did Texas Republicans take a step the Supreme Court has already rejected? Probably because they’re confident the newly politicized high court and its dominant far-right majority will simply overturn the Stone precedent, doing fresh harm to the wall that’s supposed to separate church and state in this country.
We’ll likely find out soon whether their assumption is correct. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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