Chris Tomlinson is an award-wining columnist for The Houston Chronicle. Whatever he writes is worth reading. In this post, he describes the State Legislature’s eagerness to promote Christianity as the one true faith in Texas. He calls these Bible-thumpers the “Texas Taliban.”
He writes:
The Ten Commandments will hang in every public school classroom, teachers will set aside time for prayer, books that undermine the white patriarchy will be hard to find and access to sex toys will be strictly controlled if Texas’ Christian nationalist lawmakers get their way.
Republican state Sen. Phil King of Weatherford’s Senate Bill 10 would require public schools to display a 16-by-20-inch framed poster of the Ten Commandments in a “conspicuous place” in every classroom.
Never mind that a similar law passed in Louisiana is blocked while the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals considers arguments that the Constitution’s First Amendment forbids schools from promoting Christianity. Religious texts have been explicitly banned in public schools since 1980 under a Supreme Court ruling.
Right-wing lawmakers keep insisting the United States is a Christian nation, no matter what history tells us the founders intended.
“Our schools are not God-free zones,” state Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican, declared. His Senate Bill 380 would allow schools to organize prayer and scripture-reading sessions.
Sen. Angela Paxton, wife of Attorney General Ken Paxton, authored Senate Bill 13 to ban more books from public schools because past bans did not go far enough. The bill would create “Local School Library Advisory Councils to oversee school districts’ procurement of new library materials.” I can imagine who will volunteer for that duty.
It’s not just the Senate where Lt. Gov. Dan “I’m a Christian first” Patrick sets the agenda. Republicans in the House want to control retail stores.
Sex toys would only be available for sale in sexually oriented businesses, such as strip clubs, under House Bill 1549 by state Rep. Hillary Hickland of Belton. Gov. Greg Abbott handpicked her to oust an incumbent Republican who opposed school vouchers.
At the Texas Capitol, the fight to be free from religion never ends.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
#TodaysAcronym ☞ #CINO
Christian In Name Only
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Some of these so-called Christians are massive hypocrites. The Ten Commandments didn’t stop Ken Paxton from stealing and using his connections to get the offense swept under the carpet. “Paxton was indicted in 2015 on state securities fraud charges relating to activities prior to taking office; he has pleaded not guilty. On March 26, 2024, prosecutors agreed to drop the securities fraud charges against him under the terms of a pretrial agreement.”
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Very true!
They completely spurn the first commandment, “you shall have no other gods before me” because Trump is god to them. If Trump tells them that covid doesn’t exist, vaccines are bad, Haitians kidnap and eat pets, violent insurrectionists who harmed police offers are tourists, or that they should shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, they know that their god is telling them the truth.
The other commandments are clearly ones they don’t believe in: Don’t commit adultery (unless you are Donald Trump), Don’t take the name of the lord in vain (unless you are Donald Trump), Remember the Sabbath Day (unless you are Donald Trump), Don’t steal (unless you are Donald Trump), Don’t lie (unless you are Donald Trump) and so on.
If we actually had a real media in this country, the main narrative in these stories would be to ask the parents who want the commandments posted why they keep teaching their own children that their parents will admire them more if they break the commandments like Donald Trump?
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“The Ten Commandments will hang in every public school classroom, teachers will set aside time for prayer“
Not in my classroom. I refused to stand and pledge the allegiance (In MO it is mandated to be said once a week) due to the religious nature of the “under god” phraseology. Along with the free speech aspects of coerced speech. When students would inquire, I told them I’d be happy to discuss it with them before or after school, but not in Spanish class.
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““Our schools are not God-free zones,” state Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican, declared.“
They should be considering that there is no god. . . .
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To hell-ha ha-with these gawd fearing Christian Nationalist Theocratic Zealots.
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WHOSE TEN COMMANDMENTS will be posted in schools and public places? The Catholic Catechism’s Ten Commandments doesn’t include anything about “graven images”, which the Protestant Ten Commandments lists as the Second Commandment. Will Catholic children attending public schools be ridiculed by Protestant children for the “graven images” of Mary, the Apostles, and Saints in Catholic churches?
And what about teaching Genesis I and II? The Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran World Federation, the United Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church, and other denominations all reject the idea of taking Genesis literally, and they accept the Darwinian evolution of the human body. So, how will Genesis be taught in public schools? There will be a lot of conflict.
Our Founding Fathers had relatives who died in the long and bloody religious conflict of the 100 Years War between various Christian churches, and that’s why our Founding Fathers wrote religion out of our Constitution and out of our government and public schools.
So, what will it be: Constitutional freedom from religion, or religious warfare?
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There are many versions of the Ten Commandments, even in the Old Testament.
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