'Antithesis of Our First Amendment': Families Ask Supreme Court to Toss Texas' Ten Commandments Law

A group of families is asking the US Supreme Court to strike down Texas Senate Bill 10, a state law mandating that a copy of the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

The families, who come from a variety of religious denominations and are being represented by several prominent civil liberties groups, argued in a Monday court filing that SB 10 violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution because it "imposes on public school children, for nearly every hour they are in school, the state's favored scripture."

In making their case, the families argued that a recent appeals court ruling upholding the Texas law ran afoul of multiple past Supreme Court rulings, including the 2022 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which made reference to "problematically coercive" religious messages being "publicly broadcast or recited to a captive audience," and the 1980 ruling in Stone v. Graham, which determined that posting the Ten Commandments in schools violates the Constitution's establishment clause.

Rabbi Joshua Fixler, a plaintiff in the case, said the Texas Ten Commandments law made him "not only worried about my own kids," but "deeply concerned about all the children in my congregation."

"These displays put children in the position of having to defend themselves and their families’ religious beliefs," said Fixler, "against a government mandate that makes them feel different and separate from their classmates."

Fellow plaintiff Nichole Manning, an atheist from Dallas, argued that the Texas law is "interfering with our family’s decisions about how our children engage with religion."

“As a parent, I intentionally choose to have my children attend public school because I prefer an educational environment without any religious affiliation," Manning emphasized. "In a diverse public school environment, all students should be treated with equal respect, regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof."

In an editorial published in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, plaintiff Audrey Nath said that the Texas law was interfering with her right to raise her children to "celebrate the diversity of religious faiths in our families: Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism, and Quakerism."

"My 9-year-old son is proud of his heritage, and he even brought that statue of Shiva to his public school as part of a presentation about his family history," Nath explained. "SB 10 puts a permanent, state-mandated sign above his desk telling him what he carried in is forbidden."

ACLU of Texas staff attorney Chloe Kempf, who is co-representing the families, said that past legal precedents give the current Supreme Court a clear roadmap to overturn the Texas law.

"The US Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” said Kempf. “Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion. Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities—not politicians—get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives."

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, argued that mandating schools display the First Commandment alone is "the antithesis of our First Amendment" because it dictates "which god must be worshipped."

"It is not the government’s role to daily expose young children to a coercive display of one religion’s set of religious edicts in our public schools," Gaylor emphasized. "Our public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize."