Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is pledging to sign a bill that would require public school and college classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, days after a similar measure in Louisiana became law.
In a social media post, Patrick criticized Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, for rejecting a state Senate bill that would have required the display of the Ten Commandments in schools. On Thursday he promised to reinstate the measure.
“SB 1515 will restore this historic tradition of recognizing America’s heritage and remind students across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation of American and Texas law: the Ten Commandments,” Patrick wrote in X. “Return to put the Ten Commandments in “Our schools were obviously not a priority for Dade Phelan.”
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Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick vows to pass bill requiring public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. (Reuters/Jon Herskovitz)
The bill would require Texas public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Currently there is no requirement.
Fox News Digital reached out to Phelan’s office.
Phelan and Patrick had fallen out after Patrick presided over the impeachment trial this year of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
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Several years ago, workers remove a monument bearing the Ten Commandments outside an Ohio high school. Louisiana has become the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. (AP Photo/Al Behrman/File)
“Texas SHOULD have been and SHOULD have been the first state in the nation to put the Ten Commandments back in our schools,” Patrick wrote in X. “But PRESIDENT Dade Phelan killed the bill by letting it languish in committee for a month, ensuring that he would never have time for a plenary vote.
This week, Louisiana became the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups said they plan to challenge the law.
Professor at Notre Dame Law School Richard W. Garnettwho is director of the school’s Program on Church, State and Society, said several states are likely to make efforts to emulate Louisiana.
“It remains to be seen whether these types of measures are permissible,” he told Fox News Digital. “Supreme Court doctrine has changed in some areas, but it has not changed in all.”
Workers repaint a Ten Commandments sign along Interstate 71 on Election Day near Chenoweth, Ohio, on Nov. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster/File)
A key question for the high court will be whether a display like the Ten Commandments “has a coercive effect” on children given their age and if it is done in a classroom, Garnett said.
He noted that those who question such laws will likely point out that the United States is a religiously diverse nation and that public schools are run by the government for a “pluralistic people” even though the country’s founding was inspired by the Christian convictions of some individuals. .
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In a joint statement announcing their opposition to the Louisiana law, the ACLU and civil rights groups noted that religion is a private matter.
“The First Amendment promises that we will all be able to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government,” the statement said. “Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”
