A Democrat-aligned federal judge has just blocked a Texas law that would have required the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.
The move marks the latest setback for red states attempting to restore religious tradition in schools.
On Wednesday, Judge Fred Biery, a Bill Clinton appointee, issued a preliminary injunction against S.B. 10.
Biery ruled that Texas lawmakers failed to demonstrate that public schools have a historic tradition of posting the Ten Commandments.
“This Court finds there is insufficient evidence of a broad tradition in place at the time of the Founding, and within the history of public education, to justify S.B. 10,” Biery wrote.
The judge also claimed the measure “impermissibly takes sides on theological questions and officially favors Christian denominations over others,” making it unconstitutional under his interpretation of the First Amendment.
The lawsuit was brought by families of different religious backgrounds and non-religious plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs argued that the law would impose a religious preference on their children.
Biery leaned heavily on precedent, citing a June ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that struck down a similar Louisiana law.
Earlier this month, a judge in Arkansas blocked another Ten Commandments bill, making Texas the third state in recent months to see its legislation stopped in court.
The Supreme Court first struck down classroom postings of the Ten Commandments in Stone v. Graham (1980).
The SCOTUS ruling invalidated a Kentucky law on the grounds that it lacked a “secular purpose.”
Biery noted that Texas lawmakers tried to frame the bill in neutral terms.
However, the judge claimed their own words in public contradicted those claims.
The judge quoted State Sen. Phil King (R), the bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate:
“We want every kid, [kindergarten] through twelve, every day, in every classroom they sit in to look on the wall and read … those words … because we want them to understand how important that those statements of God, those rules of God are that they see them in their classroom every single day of their public education.”
Biery said such statements showed lawmakers had “a predominantly religious objective” when pushing the legislation.
The bill’s authors, however, insisted they sought to recognize history and tradition.
In a statement accompanying the bill, they wrote:
“Now that the legal landscape has changed, it is time for Texas to pass S.B. 10 and restore the history and tradition of the Ten Commandments in our state and our nation.”
The ruling underscores the growing clash between red-state legislatures attempting to restore acknowledgment of America’s Judeo-Christian heritage in public schools and courts still applying decades-old precedent that restricts public religious expression.
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