Texas Senate Votes To Shove Ten Commandments Down Schoolkids' Throats

They do not consider the tablets a choking hazard.

Well, it's another victory for parental rights in education!

The Texas Senate has voted in favor of two bills designed to shove Christianity down the unwilling throats of all children in the public education system — so that good Christian parents don't have to worry about sending their kids to school with heathens.

 Senate Bill 1515 would require every single classroom to put the Ten Commandments up in a place where all of the children can see it every day and therefore be reminded that they should not covet anyone else's wife or put any other god before the Christian god, regardless of their personal beliefs. This doesn't mean they can't have their own religion, of course — they will be free to worship however they like, so long as they put the Christian god first.

 Senate Bill 1396 will require "every campus of the district or school to provide students and employees with an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text on each school day in accordance with this section."

The bill will also require parents to sign a permission slip stating that they know their child has a "choice" to participate or not, that they don't "object to the student's or employee's participation in or hearing of the prayers or readings offered during the period," and that it is "an express waiver of the person's right to bring a claim under state or federal law arising out of the adoption of a policy under this section, including a claim under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or a related state or federal law, releasing the district or school and district or school employees from liability for those claims brought in state or federal court."

So basically it's "It should be totally fine to establish religion in a public school, just as long as everyone goes ahead and signs away their First Amendment right for the government to not establish religion in a public school, which is definitely a thing you can do."

The awkward thing here is that the Establishment Clause is not actually about an individual right to not have the government foist religion upon them, it is about the government not actually being allowed to foist religion on people whether they want it or not. It's not an option. There are lots of people out there who would love to have the government enforce their religion, to celebrate their religion, but that is not something they get to have.

The people supporting the law are very excited about the fact that it may, unlike previous attempts to force prayer on school children since  Engel v. Vitale  in 1962, actually be approved by the Supreme Court. This is because, last year, the court sided with Joe Kennedy, a Washington state football coach who had been leading his team in prayer before games — effectively overruling Lemon v. Kurtzman, which famously established the three-prong Lemon test to determine violations of the Establishment clause:

1.  The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. (Also known as the Purpose Prong) 

2.  The principal or primary effect of the statute must neither advance nor inhibit religion. (Also known as the Effect Prong) 

3.  The statute must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion. (Also known as the Entanglement Prong) 

They then decided to replace that test with a mysterious "history and tradition" test, but did not tell anyone what this test entails.

According to the Texas Tribune, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that both bills are wins for religious freedom in Texas, despite the fact that they are literally the exact opposite of that.

“I believe that you cannot change the culture of the country until you change the culture of mankind,” he said. “Bringing the Ten Commandments and prayer back to our public schools will enable our students to become better Texans.”

Because "thoughts and prayers" have really been such an effective tactic for fighting school shootings.

Is it that Patrick thinks that Christian parents are doing a bad job of raising their children in their religion and require help from the schools or that children who are not Christian need to have Christianity forced upon them in school because their own parents did a bad job picking out a belief system for their families? It's gotta be one of the two and both seem pretty darn unconstitutional. That is, if you consider the Constitution to be anything more than a slip of paper that says you get to own a nuclear bomb if you like.

Christian Nationalism has become a popular idea among America's wackiest Republicans, including people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who is about to publish a book titled  The Case for Christian Nationalism , ghostwritten by Milo Yiannopoulos. After all, how are they supposed to be able to enjoy their religion if they can't force it on other people?

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