Texas cannot require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, a judge said Wednesday in a temporary ruling against the state’s new requirement, making it the third such state law to be blocked by a court.
A group of Dallas-area families and faith leaders 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.
Making it the third such state law to be blocked by a court.
It should become a criminal offense to write laws this way. Of course some laws you write will be challenged and that’s ok. But if you have legislation you wrote blocked by a court three times you belong in prison.
I feel like I read this story at least once a year, just swap out the name of a different red state each time. The party of small government will never stop trying to shove religion down our throats.
And you will continue to hear it every year until they win. It’s the same thing they did with abortion. Just keep hammering the issue over and over until the resistance is exhausted and they find a weak point in the defense and force their way through.
never stop trying to shove religion down our throats
They really want that theocracy, don’t they?
They want authoritarianism. They don’t care how they get there. It just so helps that much of their base is religious. It also helps that they can twist that religion to point at outgroups.
If the Flying Spaghetti Monster offered a way for people with money and power to accumulate more money and power, they absolutely would abandon Christianity and become pastafarians.
I’m religious neutral (I don’t like the term atheist), and I’m fine with the Ten Commandments.
Work within the system to bust it open.
The first commandment says “thou shalt have no other gods before me.” In a monotheistic religion (one god), that seems nonsensical. What He’s really saying is you can’t put anything before God. Including money. Or greed.
Another one says “thou shalt not bear false witness,” which is to say “don’t lie,” but they can’t stop doing that.
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s…” I forget. Ass is in my family’s KJV (meaning donkey of course) and that’s funny. But this is another good one. They need to stop coveting our freedom and what little we have left and stop stealing from the poor.
Why should we live by these rules if the people in power won’t? In that case the rules aren’t even arbitrary.
I don’t get Americans’ obsession with putting religion into schools. Didn’t y’all flee Europe because of religious oppression? Isn’t religious freedom one of the pillars of USAmerican society? Surely some of the Christians must realize that if the state makes “Christianity” the state religion, sooner or later that becomes a specific variety of Christianity and it probably won’t be their specific variety. Or are there no actual Christians left and do they only care about the symbols of “Christianity” as stand-ins for the symbols of white supremacy? (Don’t tell me.)
No, the puritans fled England to flee people’s response to their godawful rule. But they went to the Netherlands, which was known for its religious tolerance. Unfortunately, the Netherlands tolerated all religions not just theirs, which was absolutely unacceptable so they fled to north America as they’d rather deal with new England weather than people with different ideas about the same God.
We do have some states founded on European religious oppression. Maryland was given to Lord Baltimore to get the catholic nobleman out of England (hence it being named after Mary and having a ton of Jews). And Pennsylvania was founded to be a refuge for Quakers and good old Quaker values of tolerance, nonviolence, and friendship towards those who are different.
We also had New
AmsterdamYork which was founded by the Dutch where they exported their religious tolerance and mercantile capitalism, resulting in a large, diverse, and well off city.Didn’t y’all flee Europe because of religious oppression me?
Nope I was just born here 300 years later.
Didn’t y’all flee Europe because of religious oppression?
This is something we’re all taught as kids, and it’s presented as “Oh, they were just quietly practicing in their own way, and then the mean government stepped in and trampled them simply because it was different from the Church of England”.
What we’re not taught is how the Puritans were a repressed bunch of freaks that everyone fucking hated, and were “persecuted” for being a menace to society. They literally hate life and enjoyment of it, and wanted a theocracy to enforce it. When they were in power in England, they literally banned the celebration of Christmas because people had too much fun celebrating it.
It then shouldn’t be surprising the US is filled with prudes who think they’re the most persecuted minority on the planet and want a theocracy to enforce it, because it’s literally the foundation of the country.
