ACLU, religious freedom groups sue to block Texas’ Ten Commandments requirement in 14 more school districts

(The Texas Tribune) -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a coalition of religious freedom organizations are suing 14 more Texas school districts to block them from implementing a new state law requiring public school classrooms to display donated posters of the Ten Commandments.

A Texas federal judge in August temporarily blocked the Ten Commandments law from taking full effect, following an initial lawsuit brought forth by 16 families of various religious and nonreligious backgrounds, represented by the civil rights groups.

The ruling only applied to the nearly a dozen Texas school districts named in the groups' first lawsuit, though attorneys expressed hope in court that other districts would not implement a law that the judge found unconstitutional. But on Monday, those lawyers told the same court in a legal filing that many districts have started implementing the new law or signaled an intent to do so.

In his Augustdecision, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery concluded that the law favors Christianity over other faiths, is not neutral with respect to religion and is likely to interfere with families' “exercise of their sincere religious or nonreligious beliefs in substantial ways.”

“There are ways in which students could be taught any relevant history of the Ten Commandments without the state selecting an official version of scripture, approving it in state law, and then displaying it in every classroom on a permanent basis,” Biery wrote in his opinion, adding that the law “crosses the line from exposure to coercion.”

Texas has appealed the ruling, sending the case to the same court where a three-judge panel recently blocked Louisiana's Ten Commandments law from taking effect. The state also requested that all active judges on the court hear the case, as opposed to a three-judge panel. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a new release that he wants the court to take up Texas' and Louisiana's appeals together.

“The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of American law, and that fact simply cannot be erased by radical, anti-American groups trying to ignore our moral heritage,” Paxton said. “There is no legal reason to stop Texas from honoring a core ethical foundation of our law, especially not a bogus claim about the ‘separation of church and state,’ which is a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution.”

Oral arguments in the Texas case, Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, concluded in August, several weeks after the16 parents of various religious backgrounds, represented by the religious freedom organizations, sued the state over what their lawyers called "catastrophically unconstitutional” legislation. Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District, the latest legal filing, includes more than a dozen new families.

In court last month, the attorneys argued with a lawyer from the state attorney general's office over the role Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison played in developing the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of religion. Both parties also debated the influence of the Ten Commandments on the country's legal and educational systems, and whether the version of the Ten Commandments required to go up in schools belongs to a particular religious group.

Another group of parents filed a similar lawsuit in Dallas during the summer.

These suits challenge one of the latest measures passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year. Critics say the law injects religion into the state’s public schools, attended by roughly 5.5 million children.

The background

Senate Bill 10, by Republican Sen. Phil King of Weatherford, would require the Ten Commandments be displayed on a donated poster sized at least 16 by 20 inches come September, when most new state laws go into effect. Gov. Greg Abbott signed it in late June, the day after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found a similar law in Louisiana was “plainly unconstitutional.” The court ruled that requiring schools to post the Ten Commandments would cause an “irreparable deprivation” of First Amendment rights. An Arkansas judge ruled similarly in a separate case.

Supporters argue that the Ten Commandments and teachings of Christianity broadly are vital to understanding U.S. history, a controversial message that has resurged in recent years as part of a broader national movement to undermine the long-held interpretation of church-state separation. Texas GOP lawmakers have passed a number of laws in recent years to further codify their conservative religious views, a trend encouraged and celebrated by Christian leaders.

“This issue is likely to get to the United States Supreme Court,” Biery, the judge, told a San Antonio courtroom prior to opening arguments in the Texas case.

Biery's August ruling blocking the law from taking full effect applied to the following school districts: Alamo Heights, North East, Lackland, Northside, Austin, Lake Travis, Dripping Springs, Houston, Fort Bend, Cypress-Fairbanks and Plano.

The latest lawsuit from the ACLU seeks further action in the following districts: Comal, Georgetown, Conroe, Flour Bluff, Fort Worth, Arlington, McKinney, Frisco, Northwest, Azle, Rockwall, Lovejoy, Mansfield, McAllen.

What are the plaintiffs saying

“Posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is un-American and un-Baptist,” Griff Martin, a pastor, parent and plaintiff in the first ACLU lawsuit, said in a statement. “S.B. 10 undermines the separation of church and state as a bedrock principle of my family’s Baptist heritage. Baptists have long held that the government has no role in religion — so that our faith may remain free and authentic.”

In the lawsuit brought by the North Texas parents, the plaintiffs, who identify as Christian, said the law was unconstitutional and violated their right to direct their children’s upbringing.

One of them, a Christian minister, said the displays will offer a message of religious intolerance, “implying that anyone who does not believe in the state’s official religious scripture is an outsider and not fully part of the community.” That message, the minister argued, conflicts with the religious, social justice and civil rights beliefs he seeks to teach his kids.

Another North Texas plaintiff, a mother of two, is worried she will be “forced” to have sensitive and perhaps premature conversations about topics like adultery with her young children — and also “does not desire that her minor children to be instructed by their school about the biblical conception of adultery,” the suit states.

The plaintiffs in the ACLU suit come from diverse religious backgrounds, including families who are nonreligious. Allison Fitzpatrick said in a statement that she fears her children will think they are violating school rules because they don’t adhere to commandments like honoring the Sabbath.

“The state of Texas has no right to dictate to children how many gods to worship, which gods to worship, or whether to worship any gods at all,” sad Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which brought the lawsuit alongside the ACLU.

The attorneys called the version of the Ten Commandments in SB 10 a "state-sponsored Protestant version," which was corroborated by their witness, constitutional law professor and religious history expert Steven Green. They argued against the notion that the Ten Commandments were central to the development of the country's legal and educational systems, which Green agreed lacks historical support. The court also found Green's testimony more persuasive than the state's.

What the state is saying

The attorney general's office argued in the August hearing that the Ten Commandments are part of the nation's history and heritage, and that previous rulings from federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court blocking the commandments from going up in classrooms did not examine that historical significance.

Attorneys for the statenoted that the Supreme Court recently shot down the test that courts previously relied on to determine when a government had unconstitutionally endorsed or established a religion. And, attorneyspointed out a decades-old ruling in a Nebraska case, regarding a Ten Commandments monument on city property, where an appeals court decided in favor of the monument that displayed the same version of the commandments Texas wants to show in public schools. They relied on that ruling to make the case that SB 10 does not favor a particular religious group.

Their viewpoint was supported in court by Mark David Hall, a professor and author who studies religious liberty and church-state relations. Hall, the state's expert witness, recently wrote a book that considers how "Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church."

Attorney William Farrell from the attorney general's office described SB 10's requirement as a "passive display on the wall" that does not rise to the level of coercion. The Ten Commandments posters must only go up if they are donated to the school, he further argued, and the law does not specify what would happen if districts choose not to comply. The state views that as evidence that it poses no threat or harm to families.

"SB 10 doesn't restrict anything," Farrell said. "It doesn't exclude anything or specifically require any ... participation by students."