The Republican-majority Texas Senate on Thursday approved a bill that seeks to force schools in the state to have the list of the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting next school year.
The measure will be voted on in the state House of Representatives and, if approved there as well, would be sent to the governor, Greg Abbott, to sign it into law.
Phil King, a Republican senator from Weatherford, said, quoted by The Texas Tribune, that the legislation "will remind every student in all of Texas of the importance of the founding foundations of America."
Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, displays the Ten Commandments outside the state Capitol during a press conference in 2005, when he was the state's attorney general.Getty Images
During a hearing this month, the lawmaker said the Ten Commandments are part of America's heritage and needed to be brought back to the classroom.
King expanded, quoted by the newspaper, that the Supreme Court had paved the way for this proposal after he endorsed Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach in Washington, who had said he had been fired for praying during the games.
The Court found that Kennedy was praying as a citizen, not as an employee of the school district.
Separately, the state Senate also approved a measure, introduced by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, that
will allow public and charter schools to set aside time for students and employees to read the Bible and other religious texts
.
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Critics of the measures denounced the approval.
John Litzler, general counsel and director of Public Policy at the Texas Baptists Christian Life Commission, was opposed to considering that taxpayer money should not go towards religious texts and that parents, not schools, should be the ones to talk to children
about religion
.
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"I must have the right to explain to my daughter the concepts of adultery and desire her partner," Litzler said, quoted by The Washington Post.
"It shouldn't be one of the first things she learns to read in preschool classes."
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For its part, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas called the proposal an "example of failed priorities and failed leadership."
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"
The Constitution of the United States expressly prohibits the relationship between church and state
, and the Texas Constitution guarantees freedom of worship," David Donatti, an attorney for the ACLU of Texas, told the newspaper.
"Whether they belong to a religion or not, people of all faiths and beliefs must together oppose state support for a particular religion."
