The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, marking a victory for upholding the nation’s Christian foundation of the law.
The 9-8 decision overrules a preliminary injunction put in place by a federal district court judge in November, who concluded that “displaying the Ten Commandments on the wall of a public-school classroom as set forth in S.B. 10 [Senate Bill 10] violates the [First Amendment’s] Establishment Clause.”
The First Amendment says in part that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But the Supreme Court has ruled that the Amendment’s protections apply to state law.
In the 5th Circuit’s majority opinion, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote, “To Plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination. We disagree.”
“S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’). No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.”
Hellbound and Down 