Texas GOP Rep: “Our Schools Are Not God-Free Zones”

May 7, 2023 Christianists, Republicans

Courthouse News reports:

Senate Bill 1515 would require a poster of the Ten Commandments to be in every public school classroom in the state. Under Senate Bill 1396, public school districts would be able to adopt policies allowing for a moment of prayer and a reading from the Bible or other religious text during the school day. Senate Bill 763 is a measure that would allow school districts to employ chaplains to serve as school counselors.

Republican state Senator Mayes Middleton of Galveston authored both SB 1396 and SB 763. During the layout of SB 1396 on the Senate floor, he told his fellow lawmakers that the bill is needed to expand religious liberties in public schools. “The reality is that our school children and faculty spend much of their lives in the school building and classroom…and our schools are not God-free zones,” said Middleton.

The Texas Tribune reports:

Waving a copy of the Ten Commandments and a 17th-century textbook, amateur historian David Barton recently argued that Christianity has always formed the basis of American morality and thus is essential to Texas classrooms.

“This is traditional, historical stuff,” he told a Texas Senate Education Committee last month. “It’s hard to say that anything is more traditional in American education than was the Ten Commandments.”

For nearly four decades, Barton has preached that message to politicians and pews across the country, arguing that church-state separation is a “myth” that is disproven by centuries-old texts, like the school book he showed senators, that reference the Ten Commandments and other religious texts.

As Right Wing Watch has doggedly reported for years, Barton’s claims that foundational US documents directly quote the bible are completely false.

Mayes Middleton is a former board member of the anti-LGBTQ Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is behind the state’s ongoing pogrom against trans people.



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