Austin, Texas – Texas would need all public school classrooms to Show the ten commandments Within the framework of a republican proposal which sparked a major vote on Saturday and would make the greatest state in the country to impose such a mandate.
If it is adopted as planned, the measure is likely to arouse a judicial challenge of the criticisms which consider it as a constitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
The house under republican control gave its preliminary approval with a final vote expected in the coming days. This would send the bill to the Bureau of the Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who said he would sign it.
“The objective of this bill is to look at what is historically important for our educational and judicial nation,” said Candy Noble, representative of the republican state, co-sponsor of the bill.
Two other states, Louisiana and Arkansas, have similar laws, but Louisiana is suspended after a federal judge concluded that it was ” Unconstitutional on his face. “”
These measures are Among the effortsMainly in the states led by the conservatives, to insert religion into public schools. The vote in Texas came after the Supreme Court of the United States indeed put an end to a Catholic charter school funded by the State In Oklahoma Thursday with a draw of 4-4 following a series of decisions of the High Court in recent years which have enabled public funds to move on to religious entities.
Texas legislators have also adopted and sent to Abbott a measure that allows school districts to provide students and staff a voluntary period of daily prayer or time to read a religious text during school hours. Abbott should sign it.
“We should encourage our students to read and study their Bible every day,” said the Republican state representative Brent Money. “Our children in our public schools need prayer, need biblical reading, more now than ever.”
Supporters of the requirement of the ten commandments in the classrooms claim that they are part of the foundation of judicial and educational systems in the United States and should be posted.
But criticism, including certain Christian and other confessional leaders, say that the ten commandments and prayer measures would relate to the religious freedom of others.
The bill on the ten commandments obliges public schools to publish in classrooms a poster of 16 per 20 inches (41 per 51 centimeter) or a copy framed by a specific English version of commandments, even if the translations and interpretations vary to the other, according to names, confessions and languages ​​and can differ in houses and worship.
Democratic legislators made several unsuccessful attempts on Saturday to modify the bill to demand that schools display other religious texts or provide several translations of commands.
A letter signed this year by dozens of Christian and Jewish religious leaders opposing the bill noted that Texas has thousands of students from other faiths who may have no connection with the ten commandments. Texas has nearly 6 million students in around 9,100 public schools.
In 2005, Abbott, who was the state prosecutor at the time, successfully supported the Supreme Court that Texas could keep a monument of ten commandments on the grounds of its Capitol.
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Lathan is a member of the body for the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national services program that places journalists from local editorial rooms to report on under-cover issues.
