By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press
Texas cannot require public schools in Houston, Austin and other select districts to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, a judge said Wednesday in a temporary ruling against the state’s new requirement.
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A group of families from the districts sought a preliminary injunction against the law, which goes into effect on Sept. 1. They say the requirement violates the First Amendment’s protections for the separation of church and state and the right to free religious exercise.
Texas is the largest state to attempt such a requirement, and U.S. District Judge Fred Biery’s ruling from San Antonio is the latest in a widening legal fight that’s expected to eventually go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Even though the Ten Commandments would not be affirmatively taught, the captive audience of students likely would have questions, which teachers would feel compelled to answer. That is what they do,” Biery wrote in the 55-page ruling that began with quoting the First Amendment and ended with “Amen.”
The ruling prohibits the 11 districts and their affiliates from posting the displays required under the state law. The law is being challenged by a group of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families, including clergy, who have children in the public schools.
The families were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
“Today’s ruling is a major win that protects the constitutional right to religious freedom for Texas families of all backgrounds,” Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement. “The court affirmed what we have long said: Public schools are for educating, not evangelizing.”
A broader lawsuit that names three Dallas-area districts as well as the state education agency and commissioner is pending in federal court.
A federal appeals court has blocked a similar law in Louisiana, and a judge in Arkansas told four districts they cannot put up the posters, although other districts in the state said they’re not putting them up either.
Although Friday’s ruling marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the law violates the separation of church and state, the legal battle is likely far from over.
Religious groups and conservatives say the Ten Commandments are part of the foundation of the United States’ judicial and educational systems and should be displayed. Texas has a Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds and won a 2005 Supreme Court case that upheld the monument.
In Louisiana — the first state that mandated the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms — a panel of three appellate judges in June ruled that the law was unconstitutional.
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