The Texas House on Sunday passed Senate Bill 10, a measure requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom in the state.
The bill now returns to the Senate for concurrence, following a last-minute perfecting amendment the Senate participated in writing. It would then advance to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law.
Such a law is likely to provoke a court challenge as a potential violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Posting religious texts without context doesn't teach history," state Rep. Vincent Perez (D-El Paso) said in opposing the bill. "It risks promoting one religion over others, something our Constitution forbids."
SB 10 passed its third and final reading in the Texas House on Sunday by a vote of 82-46, with a handful of Democrats crossing the aisle to support the Republican majority.
The measure, which will take effect Sept. 1 if signed by Abbott, requires every public-school classroom in the state to display a version of the Ten Commandments using the same language from the King James Bible as used on the Ten Commandments monument outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin.
"This monument and the words on it have already been approved and upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2005 case," said state Rep. Candy Noble (R-Lucas), the bill's sponsor in the House, at the start of the debate over the bill on Saturday, "so the wording won't need to be subject to a new court case objection."
Perez claimed Noble was incorrect in her interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling. He argued that while it protected such displays outside state legislatures, it did not apply to displays in public schools.
"The Supreme Court has indeed addressed the Ten Commandments," Perez said, "but never once has it approved their mandatory display inside public-school classrooms. Quite the opposite. In Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law, precisely like this one because it mandated a clearly religious display in classrooms. That decision remains good law today."
Many Texas Republican lawmakers, however, see the 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham as having been invalidated by a more recent decision, 2022's Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which allowed a school football coach to pray on the field during and after games.
The question of which precedent dominates is facing a test before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. That court is set to hear a challenge to a Louisiana law passed last year that is virtually identical to SB 10, down to the wording of the Ten Commandments required in public-school classrooms.
In making the case for SB 10, Noble used a series of historical, legal and moral arguments, stressing that the Ten Commandments had been used in textbooks throughout much of U.S. history until the 1971 Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman forced their removal from the classroom. She argued that the ruling in Kennedy invalidated the precedents both of Lemon and of Stone.
"Nothing is more deep-rooted in the fabric of our American tradition of education than the Ten Commandments," Noble said. "The very way we treat others in our society come from the principles found in the Ten Commandments. In these days of courtroom mayhem, it's time to return to the truths, to the fabric of our educational system. Respect authority. Respect others. Don't steal. Tell the truth. Don't kill. Keep your word."
Democratic lawmakers offered a string of fifteen amendments, which seemed designed as much as anything to push Republicans into acknowledging that the bill was meant to enshrine an explicitly Christian worldview in Texas classrooms. Republicans repeatedly shut down any discussion of the proposed amendments, several times using a parliamentary tool known as a point of order even before the Democratic speaker was able to begin explaining his or her amendment.
Perez and state Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D-Houston) each proposed amendments that would have required the classroom display of Jewish and Catholic translations of the Ten Commandments alongside that of the Protestant King James Bible.
"These aren't trivial differences. They reflect profound theological traditions. By pretending these differences don't exist, the bill doesn't restore tradition. It distorts it," Perez said. "If we adopt the original version of this bill, legal challenges are inevitable, and taxpayers will bear the expense."
Perez and Rosenthal's amendments were each defeated. So, too, were several amendments by state Rep. Gene Wu (D-Houston), who sought to place alongside the Ten Commandments displays of texts foundational to other religious traditions that have large numbers of adherents in Texas: Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism.
Several Democrats made the point that roughly a third of Texans are neither Christian nor Jewish and do not consider the Ten Commandments foundational to their belief systems.
State Rep. John Bryant (D-Dallas) raised the concern that SB 10 could be used as a wedge for the further introduction of an explicitly and narrowly Christian worldview into public schools. He noted the difficulty the average public schoolteacher would have in addressing questions by young children about the Ten Commandments, such as the meaning of adultery.
"And the first time a teacher stumbles and makes a mistake," Bryant said, "Ms. Noble and all of her allies who are carrying this bill will be leading a group with pitchforks down to the schoolboard to raise Cain and claim that somebody is persecuting Christians."
The final speaker against the bill during Saturday's 2½-hour debate was state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin), a former San Antonio public schoolteacher and current seminary student. He cited the Apostle Paul in arguing that SB 10 would have the opposite of its intended effect, suggesting it would backfire and create a generation of atheists rather than one of Christians.
"There is a spiritual crisis in our world that must be addressed, but this bill is not the way to address it," Talarico said. "The separation of church and state doesn't just protect the state. It also protects the church."