Ten Commandments Bill May Be Doomed Amid Fierce Opposition from the Baptists
Capitol Inside May 13, 2025
The most powerful Baptist in Texas is proving to be no match for the denomination as a political force in Austin where his fast-track push for a Ten Commandments mandate for the public schools has slowed to a crawl in the House where it's parked in the committee that effectively buried it two years ago.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's 10th highest-rated priority for the regular session, Senate Bill 10 languished in the House for more than a month before the Public Education Committee approved it on a party-line vote of 10-4 on May 1 without changes to the original proposal. SB 10 did not land in the Calendars Committee until late last week - eight days after the panel's belated nod.
All of the public school committee's Republicans and one Democrat voted to advance the commandments requirement despite the fact that SB 10 encountered five times more opposition than support at a public hearing that spanned 20 hours the previous day.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Texas Christian Life Commission registered their disdain for the commandments mandate after playing a major role in its demise in the Legislature's lower chamber two years ago. The Baptists and other faiths see the measure as a dangerous foray into Christian nationalism by making a singular religious view appear more important than the individual beliefs of children in public schools.
The Baptists argue that the version of the commandments that the schools would not be allowed to change despite language that's highly inappropriate for younger children on subjects like adultery and the coveting of neighbors wives, male servants, maids and cattle. The terminology that SB 10 prescribes is primitive - and some of the commandments deal with subjects that haven't been priority values or concerns for thousands of years like graven images and an admonishment to keep the Sabbath day holy.
SB 10 took another hit in the public relations arena on Tuesday when the San Antonio Express-News editorial board portrayed the measure as an unconstitutional proposal that Texas parents should find offensive as a thinly-veiled attempt to program children who attend public schools.
"Ten Commandments Bill Makes Hypocritical Mockery of Parents Rights," according to the headline on the San Antonio paper's web site. The editors slammed SB 10 as a "pernicious attempt to insinuate the proper separation of church and state with Judeo-Christian indoctrination" that the Texas House should reject if they respect the U.S. Constitution.
But Patrick and the Republican sponsors - State Senator Phil King of Weatherford and State Rep. Candy Noble of Lucas - contend that the guiding principles that Moses supposedly scrawled on to tablets of stone during a storm on Mount Sanai sometime between the 13th and 16th centuries is a fundamental part of the United States of America's legal foundation.
“Nothing is more deep-rooted in the fabric of our American tradition of education than the Ten Commandments,” Noble said in defense of SB 10, according to the SAEN editorial today.
Patrick hoped to give Texas the first Ten Commandments law for public schools when he pushed the Senate to approve the proposal in regular session in 2023. After the Patrick plan failed in regular and special session that year, the Louisiana Republicans upstaged him when they adopted a Ten Commandments requirement for the public schools there. A federal
judge struck down the Louisiana legislation as unconstitutional in November and temporarily barred five school districts from enforcing it while under court review.
A school prayer proposal that the Texas lieutenant governor declared to be his 11th highest priority in 2025 could be doomed in the House as well after for almost a month before the Public Education Committee voted 10-3 to advance Senate Bill 1 late last week. SB 11 would require public schools to give students time each day for prayer or reading the Bible or other religious materials.
Texan Jody Harrison - an ordained Baptist minister and retired hospital chaplain - testified against SB 11 at the committee's hearing on the proposal on May 18. Harrison reminded the panel of persecution that Baptists faced from other Christians in the nation's infant stages. Critics warn that the attempt to depict Protestant Christianity as the state's supreme religion with public school mandates could lead to bullying and other problems that Patrick and Senate Republicans have completely failed to anticipate.
“It was a wake up call,” Harrison said of the Senate bill in a subsequent interview. “I don’t think people - even many churches - realize that this is going on right now, and that is alarming.”
The SA newspaper editors made fun of Noble's performance as the lead sponsor in the House. "There are also those who say with a straight face that the Ten Commandments merit such exhibition due to their influence on the U.S. legal system," the opinion column said. "Yet only three commandments actually prohibit crimes — the sixth against killing, the eighth against stealing and the ninth against lying, which one could stretch as a declaration against perjury.
"In response, we suggest the Magna Carta — the common shorthand for Magna Carta Libertatum, or the Great Charter of Freedoms — as the document to frame on the wall."
Patrick attends the Second Baptist Church in Houston where he delivers sermons occasionally.
more to come ...
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