Give Me That Old Time Religion (Whether You Want It Or Not)

You can draw a straight line from the ridiculous Hobby Lobby decision by the Roberts Court seven years ago to this idiocy today in Texas.

 

Public schools in Texas would have to prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting next school year under a bill the Texas Senate approved Thursday.

Senate Bill 1515 by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, now heads to the House for consideration.

This is the latest attempt from Texas Republicans to inject religion into public schools. In 2021, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Mineola Republican, authored a bill that became law requiring schools to display donated “In God We Trust” signs.

King said during a committee hearing earlier this month that the Ten Commandments are part of American heritage and it’s time to bring them back into the classroom. He said the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for his bill after it sided with Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach in Washington state who was fired for praying at football games. The court ruled that was praying as a private citizen, not as an employee of the district.

“[The bill] will remind students all across Texas of the importance of the fundamental foundation of America,” King said during that hearing.

The Senate also gave final passage to Senate Bill 1396, authored by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, which would allow public and charter schools to adopt a policy requiring every campus to set aside a time for students and employees to read the Bible or other religious texts and to pray.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement that both bills are wins for religious freedom in Texas.

“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.”

Matt Krause, a former Texas state representative and attorney with the First Liberty Institute, the organization that represented the Washington coach, said the Kennedy case was a victory in religious freedom and this bill would be protected.

“The Kennedy case for religious liberty was much like the Dobbs case was for the pro-life movement,” he said. “It was a fundamental shift.”

 

As I said years ago, "You people having rights at all is violating my closely held beliefs as a Christian" will be used to roll America back decades and to eliminate the civil rights era entirely. We're going to see a lot more of this in the years ahead, theocratic tyranny used to preserve white supremacy forever.

And yeah, we're locking in a two-tiered America where you may have rights in one state, and absolutely not in another, depending on your sex, religion, who you love, the color of your skin, etc.

It was unsaid before, now it's open oppression, and it's not going to be sustainable. Sadly, with the same states taking rights away also being the states with open carry firearms and little to no restrictions on who can buy them, the odds of mass violence (even more than the mass shootings we already have) are high, only this time when these states lean in on violence, thousands are going to die.