Said John Litzler, general counsel for the Texas Baptists Christian Life Commission, quoted in "Public schools would have to display Ten Commandments under bill passed by Texas Senate/The Senate also passed a bill that would set prayer and Bible reading times during the school day" (The Texas Tribune).
On the pro side, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said: "I believe that you cannot change the culture of the country until you change the culture of mankind. Bringing the Ten Commandments and prayer back to our public schools will enable our students to become better Texans."
I like the way Litzler is invoking parental rights, which, on other issues, are so performatively treasured by social conservatives.
The 10 Commandments were big in the early days of this blog (see, for example, this long post from 2005 about 2 then-new Supreme Court cases). I guess we're due for another go-round with the famous stone slabs.
Why not? Those 2 cases were crudely split, and we've got a differently split Court now.
Posts
85 comments:
…the type of overreach nobody lives to regret…
The Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen- CRASH!..uh…TEN! Ten commandments!
Mel Brooks kinda wrecked the commandments for me…
"I should have the right to introduce my daughter to the concepts of adultery and coveting one's spouse."
Isn't the sin coveting another's spouse?
I agree with the quote. Parents should control the message their kids receive in School.
I will say, though, that things on the wall in a school classroom quickly become one with the paint.
Another loser issue for Republicans and the religious wing of the party.
I'm opposed to a government mandate introducing worship into the schools. I support teachers and students forming religious clubs and worshipping voluntarily.
This country has just simply gone so nuts- on both sides. I cannot take a side any longer on most of these 'daily issues'. It's all just craziness to me. I've long leaned strongly right, but the things I see coming out of the right these days are infantile, insane, and a sure way to get them kicked out of office.
And the left? Yikes. They left the sane plantation years ago. They're light years ahead of the GOP for sheer insanity. I give you Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Chicago and most of our damaged major cities as an example.
So...where does a sane individual go who believes in the founding principals of our country (no...I'm not for slavery), the rights of the individual to live for his or her own sake, with specific limits put on our government? (PS- Don't tell me the Libertarians. I've tried that mess. They can't even agree on a time or place to have a meeting.)
Surely we can work out a compromise. I won't try to turn your children into Christians if you don't try to turn my kids into drag queens and transsexuals.
It's good that they're using the original KJV. Teach kids to conjugate old-timey verbs.
AA said: "I like the way Litzler is invoking parental rights, which, on other issues, are so performatively treasured by social conservatives."
Are you implying that social liberals choose to cast aside parental rights for the good of the order? It would appear so.
Both Commandments he cites are on the second stone. A Solomonic Solution for a split court?
I did not learn to read in public school kindergarten. But I did learn to nap on a unisex mat. Can't remember when parochial grade school introduced categories of coveting.
The issue is secularism. Is secularism non-religious, or is it anti-religious? If we want strictly secular education, we would have to limit the curriculum to modular components addressed to barebones stuff like mathematics, science, language skills, and elementary civics. Literature, art, music, and philosophy either support or subvert religious belief and related cultural values, and are thus tools for propaganda and social control. Social conservatives aren't being merely "performative" about this. They have good reason to worry that the transmission of values that inheres in the parent/child relationship is being quite consciously destabilized.
It's just so damn convenient to have tax money used for the baby-sitting function, from ages 5-18 and beyond. The price, though, includes teacher union supremacy, which is the opposite of aristocracy, but in a very bad way.
This demonstrates that we need more choice in education. Let schools compete for students and their associated funds.
"so performatively treasured ..." Must be snarky Friday! I doubt the majority of parents seeking more influence over what the schools are presenting to their children are doing so performatively or do it for peer approval by simply uttering the words.
I don't support the hanging of the Ten Commandments in public schools, but neither do I support the overt sexual indoctrination. Normal sex ed in 7th grade works fine. But if the crazed sex people get their way then having the commandments as a bit of balance is OK. Isn't this how it goes: If it prevents just one child from growing up and coveting thy neighbor's wife's ass, then it's all worth it.
Does this post get "Performative, the word" tagged, even though Althouse is using the word and not the author of the subject article? I suspect most commenters here, myself included, would object to a person invoking parental rights as their justification for why he or she should be able to start transitioning their 7 year old son socially, and then give a regimen of puberty blockers before the onset of puberty along with estrogen treatment.
From the post:
"I like the way Litzler is invoking parental rights, which, on other issues, are so performatively treasured by social conservatives."
I don't like it, because that's not what is meant. What it actually means is that Litzler wants teachers to keep doing what they have been doing: progressive indoctrination.
"I should have the right to introduce my daughter to the concepts of adultery and coveting one's spouse."
Who is doing the coveting and whose spouse is being coveted? Perhaps he meant, " ... and coveting another person's spouse."
Also, one doesn't covet one's own spouse. Coveting applies to what one doesn't have, not to what or who you have (and has you).
they are foundational documents, why shouldn't they be displayed,
Just send your kids to Catholic school - they take care of all of that.
Or they used to as I recall.
"...I like the way Litzler is invoking parental rights, which, on other issues, are so performatively treasured by social conservatives."
Why do I sense a whiff of snark? Is it there because of that ugly pretentious word, "performatively," inflicted on us by the Progs?
“I like the way Litzler is invoking parental rights, which, on other issues, are so performatively treasured by social conservatives.”
Of course. And of course it completely elides the central idea motivating parents in general, not just “social conservatives” as put here, to invoke their rights in the classroom: too many teachers are obsessed with talking about sexual concepts and forcing those conversations on children in planned discussions. Which is completely different from posting the 10C. We all read them as children if we are reading this blog and I didn’t have to talk to my teacher about my penis in class. It is one of the foundations for Common Law and our modern jurisprudence.
But let’s boil it down to partisan bickering and express appreciation for this specious argument because he’s using “parental rights” against the cons! Ooh can I get a seal clap for the cruel neutrality on display?
The Ten Commandments are a central element of Christianity, and thus of Western History. They're also an example of the western ideal that all are equal before the law.
"Performatively treasured?" Is that the leftist term for concerned parents who want to raise normal kids?
If they want to bring Christian theology into the public schools, they must bring in the theologies of all other current major world religions, (and possibly past ones), all wrapped under the course title, "World Religions." The tenets of each covered religion must be taught objectively, without any editorializing as to one being "true," the others being "wrong" or mere myths.
'...performatively treasured..."
How do you know the sentiment?
I like the fact the lawsuit is based on parental rights specifically on sexual issues. The lawsuit is not based on the infringement of his religious beliefs but on that his rights as a parent supersedes that of the schools right to indoctrinate children.
I’m not a lawyer but conservatives would be smart to join the lawsuit but broaden to object to any sexual content being taught in school, based on the concept that parents have the right to introduce their child to these concepts.
I like the fact the lawsuit is based on parental rights specifically on sexual issues. The lawsuit is not based on the infringement of his religious beliefs but on that his rights as a parent supersedes that of the schools right to indoctrinate children.
I’m not a lawyer but conservatives would be smart to join the lawsuit but broaden to object to any sexual content being taught in school, based on the concept that parents have the right to introduce their child to these concepts.
I like the fact the lawsuit is based on parental rights specifically on sexual issues. The lawsuit is not based on the infringement of his religious beliefs but on that his rights as a parent supersedes that of the schools right to indoctrinate children.
I’m not a lawyer but conservatives would be smart to join the lawsuit but broaden to object to any sexual content being taught in school, based on the concept that parents have the right to introduce their child to these concepts.
I like the fact the lawsuit is based on parental rights specifically on sexual issues. The lawsuit is not based on the infringement of his religious beliefs but on that his rights as a parent supersedes that of the schools right to indoctrinate children.
I’m not a lawyer but conservatives would be smart to join the lawsuit but broaden to object to any sexual content being taught in school, based on the concept that parents have the right to introduce their child to these concepts.
I assume it is the state pushing this that is the problem.
If a teacher decided to not have a US flag, and instead have kids pledge to the rainbow flag, that would be fine, and thus, if a teacher wants the 10 commandments, or the Quran, that is also fine.
I don't make the rules. The progressives do.
This is based on the wrong-headed concept that we get our morals from religion. An idea Christopher Hitchens destroyed decades ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X--lX3cQMJ8
I think they can get the Progressives to go along with this.
Just make it so drag performers are required to read the commandments to the kids.
Dan Patrick's political instincts are typically poor. Shortly after becoming a State Senator, he tried to explain to his conservative radio talk show audience that the State of Texas should go to a year-round legislative session. Callers recommended that they should recall him instead. Patrick is also the fool behind the heart-beat requirement for medically required abortions, which is what people are now protesting. Patrick will likely need to go in order for Texas to adopt a reasonable 15-20 week abortion law, as Texas once had. The only positive for Patrick is he's a more reliable economic conservative than Gov. Abbott (and Sen. Cornyn, but almost anyone is more reliable than Sen. Cornyn).
"I believe that you cannot change the culture of the country until you change the culture of mankind. Bringing the Ten Commandments and prayer back to our public schools will enable our students to become better Texans." - Lt. Gov. Dan Patric
I 100% support this. And I am a Texan!
The Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
We have a freedom OF religion, not FROM religion. One cannot establish a national religion but nothing says one cannot pray in school.
Litzler's comments take us back to the days when Baptists were viewed as staunch advocates for separation of church and state. Roger Williams of Rhode Island, during the 17th century, was probably the most prominent of such American Baptists. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, founded in 1936, often participated as amicus curiae in tandem with such groups as the ACLU and the American Jewish Committee, seeking to maintain a strict separation of church and state. Things took a big turn, however, in 1988, when the Southern Baptist Convention withdrew its support of the BJC and began supporting more government intervention on behalf of religion. Since then, the Southern Baptist Convention has come to be seen as the public face of Baptists on issues of church and state.
"Coveting one's spouse"? They are yours, nothing there to covet.
Thank you for determining my treasuring is performative. Now can you do something useful and tell me where I left my keys last night?
I am always, always, astonished when I see “Christians” rejecting some essential element that marks them as Christian.
I mean, sure, you’d never want to IMPOSE upon others. That would mean taking a stand, passing laws. Mustn’t do that.
And Christians lose their young to the Left’s unceasing decadence.
Progressive liberalism and the Pro-Choice ethical religion.
Litzler seems an odd pick for the Baptists, I would rather think they would be FOR the display of the 10 Commandments. But it sounds like he is good to go on teaching his daughter the pleasures of adultery and coveting your neighbor’s wife. The family that plays together stays together. Very modern.
“ I like the way Litzler is invoking parental rights, which, on other issues, are so performatively treasured by social conservatives”
Smug, liberal condescension reeks in this statement.
Great blog post, Althouse. As good as it gets, blogwise.
Are they serious about this, or are they doing it to make a point about the other indoctrination materials that certain groups want to introduce to very young people in the classroom?
From my point of you, unless you’re teaching a course in comparative religion, that surveys a broad swath of religions, that stuff doesn’t belong in the classroom. I have no problem giving students time and space to pray individually if that’s something that they desire to do. Since daily prayer is a big component of Orthodox Judaism and Islam, among others, but accommodating religion is different from teaching it.
“And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.“
This is pathetic.
"Adultery" and "covering one's spouse" requires one to first be married, and your daughter's generation isn't doing that. Politics is downstream from culture and Republicans want to START with a political solution.
I don't know if removing prayer from schools caused or correlates with the obvious moral decay of the last half century, but I know non-progressives have a lot of ground work to do before putzing around with gimmicks like this.
This is an easy one that (I predict) will never reach the Supreme Court. Compulsory religious instruction in public school may be a popular idea in some quarters, but no way are there four votes on the SC to entertain an appeal claiming that it's constitutional.
"...performatively treasured by social conservatives." That's a surprisingly nasty comment, Professor.
I'll make you a deal: No 10 Commandments in classrooms in exchange for no Pride & Trans flags in classrooms.
Deal??
One step closer to the Christian Nationalism. Will Texas allow other religions to prominently display their sacred laws too? Allow one, allow them all, isn’t that the concept of the Establishment Clause?
“The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause
Southern Baptists are the original Texas settlers. They came from western Pennsylvania via the Shenandoah Valley and across the Mississippi to claim the open land that the Spanish were afraid to fight the Comanches for. After 40 years of fighting Mexicans and Comanches, thanks to Samuel Colt’s six shooters, the Baptists won Texas.
Interesting thing about Baptists is they always separate Church and the government. They refuse public schools teaching religion. That is the evangelist’s job.
They refuse public schools teaching religion
So, they avoid secular religious institutions, and educate their children at home?
The liberals on the Supreme Court circa 1960 forbade all exercise of Christianity religion in the public School. Sorry but that’s not what the First Amendment says. All it forbids is a Government owned religious test for office like the Roman Catholics preferred and the Marxist Cult demands.
Parents don't have the right to shield their kids from learning about anal fisting or other sexual practices you guys have decided are important to present as normal as part of a complete education but they definitely have the right to shield them from judeo-christian beliefs when presented as valid.
Maybe we should use the same method: you can opt your kid out of 10 Commandment viewing with a note just like you can opt them out of sex ed class now. I'm all about common sense compromise!
YOUR concern about kids is performative; MY concern about kids is genuine and must be respected. The people who say anyone not celebrating transexuals is guilty of killing kids think it's conservatives who're performative in their invocation of parental rights.
Tomcc said...
"...performatively treasured by social conservatives." That's a surprisingly nasty comment, Professor.
I found nothing at all surprising about it. In the case of Donald Trump, it is a deservedly nasty comment.
"I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I'll admit it. I did try and fuck her, she was married...I moved on her very heavily in fact I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I'll show you where they have some nice furniture. I moved on her like a bitch. I couldn't get there and she was married. Then all-of-a-sudden I see her, she's now got the big phony tits and everything. She's totally changed her look... I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful... I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
~ Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
Secular religions are intolerant of other religions: morality in a universal frame, ethics its relativistic sibling, and law their politically consensual cousin. Let us bray to mortal gods, goddesses, and experts to deliver us from our "burdens".
PM said...
Just send your kids to Catholic school - they take care of all of that.
Or they used to as I recall
Something I noticed about the turn of the Century. The explosion of Christian Schools. I was trying to figure out what societal shift cause the explosion. Church attendance is going down, but Christian Schools are growing fast.
It finally came to me. early on, We had Public Schools. The Catholics started their own....why....because the Public Schools were Protestant schools, up to the 50's when the WWII baby boom. That's when the academics started to put their tentacles into the public schools and sanitize them of Faith. Christian schools are the result of the left stripping the community's religious culture from Public Schools. Prayer in the morning, No after school activities on Wednesday (church night), Graduation baccalaureate services, Prayer before and after games.
"...coveting one's spouse."
Either the guy lost his wife (husband?) to another man or misquoted by the reporter. Probably the later.
but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another.”
The Public Schools in Dearborn Michigan could not be reached for comment.
Muslims were allowed "prayer accommodations" in 2013 in the public schools of Dearborn, Michigan. The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations had negotiated an arrangement with school officials in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit.
The Dearborn school board implemented a policy that allowed a place for student prayers in all public schools and also permission to leave early on Friday for scheduled prayers, according to The Christian Post.
Blogger Readering said...
I did not learn to read in public school kindergarten. But I did learn to nap on a unisex mat. Can't remember when parochial grade school introduced categories of coveting.
It's about 4th grade after kids learn to read and the ten commandments are discussed.
One wonders if any rights are "performatively treasured" by social liberals... or is that too cruelly neutral of me?
"Southern Baptists are the original Texas settlers. They came from western Pennsylvania via the Shenandoah Valley and across the Mississippi to claim the open land that the Spanish were afraid to fight the Comanches for. After 40 years of fighting Mexicans and Comanches, thanks to Samuel Colt’s six shooters, the Baptists won Texas."
You forgot the part about our stealing a great part of Mexican land to make it part of Texas.
The solution to this problem is to shut down public schools and let parents arrange for their children's education as they see fit. Even John Litzler is on board with the idea that parents should have the right to have their kids educated as they desire. Well, if he can be believed, anyway.
The downside of this plan is there would be a metric shit-ton of useless ex-schoolteachers left over, who have no discernable skills aside from grooming small children. Oh, well- eggs, omelets.
There was a Bible school that sent home a collectible card each week with an illustration of one of the 10 commandments. The parents were quite alarmed about what would be shown for #7. They needn't have worried ... The picture for that week showed an evil- looking milkman pouring a pitcher of water into a vat of milk.
I think I saw that in Readers Digest.
as opposed to satanic globalism,
You forgot the part about our stealing a great part of Mexican land to make it part of Texas.
Stealing? On this blog we respect the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo!
The Mexican-American war wasn't egregiously unjust, as territorial wars go--Polk offered to buy a bunch of California and at least *some* of the settlers living there and in the annexed territories were unhappy with Mexican rule.
Still took a few decades for both the American and Mexicans to finish "stealing" the land, in practical terms, from the Comanche hordes.
Leland: Dan Patrick's "political instincts" got him to the position of LT. Governor of the second-most populated state in the US. I don't agree with him on this, but he seems to know what his constituency wants.
Robert Cook said...
You forgot the part about our stealing a great part of Mexican land to make it part of Texas.
We didn't 'steal' it... you ever note there are MEXICAN NAMES on the Alamo? Or the fact quite a few, they were called 'Tejanos', fought for independence from Mexico. Three of the 59 men who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence were Hispanic. Two were Tejanos - José Antonio Navarro and his uncle, José Francisco Ruiz. The third was Lorenzo de Zavala, a Mexican liberal who had recently move there.
Ever here of Juan SeguĂn? Carlos de la Garza? Plácido Benavides?
Read up on Texas History will ya?
BTW.. Santa Anna declared himself a dictator and would not listen to complaints. And that had a lot to do with the war.
It would be very hard to be more Evangelical than I am professionally, personally, and heritage.
But I am very against these kinds of civil religious gestures for a number of reasons. Two of them:
One, it waters down the seriousness of what these documents and actions call for. These aren't just icons to put on the wall, these are deadly serious calls for devotion not admiration.
Two, I'd be happy if even good church going folks would take the ten commandments seriously as actual practices.
The amount of coveting, ignoring of the Sabbath (it's a day off of working, not a day to go and do more religious activities), putting almost anything in front of God as actual Lord of many parts of life, not to mention greed, sexual abuse, and all the rest. If church going folks never did these things, if they followed the Ten Commandments at the very least, Christianity would have a significantly different reputation and we wouldn't think to need to put religious gestures places.
I don't want my kids to be drowned in the kind of pseudo-religious culture wars gesturing that caused so many people to leave the church, often with a lot of anger, in the 20th century.
I'm happy, though, if schools were to say Love your neighbor as yourself. But even that's expecting a kind of salvation and transformation that genuinely good Christians would say is possible through the work of the Holy Spirit, and not simply a matter of putting up signs and expecting people to do all the things God requires without having a relationship with God.
The incoherence of this all is mind-boggling to me.
In most of these discussions about public schools I have a hard time understanding what people think is right and what is wrong. Just that they don't like being denied their choice of material for their kids.
The purpose of schools is to teach kids material that will benefit them in life and make them better citizens. Where a lot of the controversy comes in is on just what sort of material that should be.
Is there a list of topics that is not controversial?
How do you determine what is an uncontroversial list of topics and material to cover? What if a locality whose resident parents unanimously choose to teach material different from every other place in the country? Is that ok or not?
How did we use to come up with the material to cover - say before and after the civil war, and after the department of education was created?
Is there anything that can be agreed on?
For Roger Williams, separation of Church and State wasn't to protect the State, it was to protect the Church from political and civil corruption/influences.
All sorts of the wrong sorts of folks get to meddling in Church doctrines and expressions when they have a political career to make and keep.
if judges can be elected why not also elect teachers
why not have teachers band together in co-operative mode!
[by market mechanism if nothing else = aholish public schools]
"I should have the right to introduce my daughter to the concepts of adultery and coveting one's spouse."
Isn't the sin coveting another's spouse?
=======
who was misquoting ??
I took a Bible As Literature class at a public high school in the 1970s. We read the Bible aloud in class, chapter by chapter by chapter. New American Standard Version. No commentary, no prayer, and with tests on content alone.
Not sure about posting the Ten Commandments, but posting the Golden Rule could be useful. It's found in many cultures.
Cookie: We stole it from Spanish conquistadors who stole it from Aztecs who stole it from the indigenous tribes etc, etc. Then they all refused to defend it and ran from the Comanche Empire who were newly trained in Calvary Tactics after they captured Spanish imported run away horses. Just thank Sam Houston and James Polk that we ended up with it an have defended it ever since then.
You forgot the part about our stealing a great part of Mexican land to make it part of Texas.
You forgot to condemn The Beaker people and Indo-Europeans in general
They invaded Europe and many prehistoric skeletons contain Indo-European DNA, especially Y chromosomes. The Indo-Europeans invented the wheel and domesticated horses. They invaded all of Europe and got as far as India. The Brahmins are probably descended from them.
Cook doesn't know enough history to begin to understand what happened.
Public schools should be free of forced religion of any kind. That said, if private prayer is something a kid wants to do - fine.
The ten commandments are for private Christian schools.
doesn't know enough history to begin to understand what happened.
That sure takes in a lot of todays disagreements. Shouting raw ignorance into the abyss
If they want to bring Christian theology into…
Whoa skippy. Those are the basis for Jewish law as well as foundational to the Torah. Not surprised at another lefty being completely ignorant of the Judeo-Christian tradition of these United States.
"This is based on the wrong-headed concept that we get our morals from religion. An idea Christopher Hitchens destroyed decades ago."
Absolutely so. Our "morals" arise from the innate behaviors that we have evolved as social animals. These behaviors (e.g., social bonding, trust, cooperative behaviors, etc.) tend to enhance our chance of group (and individual) survival in the world. Other innate behaviors we have evolved to help us survive in times of hardship or scarcity--acquisitiveness, our drive toward self-preservation, desire to store resources for times of scarcity--can lead to anti-social behaviors when not reined in, (e.g., lying, theft, cheating, crimes of aggression and violence, etc.).
Our religious concepts and myths, created much later, are simply the explicit codification of these behaviors, (behaviors which are found in some form and degree in non-human herd or pack animals), relayed via storytelling, a human means of transmitting information across time and space. In short, religion just explains our innate behaviors to us in the form of admonitory fables, and tries to reinforce positive innate behaviors through promise of rewards or inhibit negative innate behaviors through the warning of punishment.
"'If they want to bring Christian theology into…'
"Whoa skippy. Those are the basis for Jewish law as well as foundational to the Torah. Not surprised at another lefty being completely ignorant of the Judeo-Christian tradition of these United States."
Of course. But one can be sure it is not Jewish families (or Jewish legislators) who have hard-ons to get religion indoctrination into the public schools.
So, Chuck invokes a gratuitous reference to Donald Trump in response to my comment. Very pithy.
A children’s class at my church posted the 10 Commandments in kid-friendly language. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” became “Mom and Dad stay together.” Sounded good to me.
@Mike: You’re right. The 10 Commandments are not Jewish or Christian but Judeo-Christian.
And we can go farther. The 10C (at least the “second table” that regulates human-to-human behavior) are well-nigh universal in world religions. Some attempt an evolutionary explanation for this, but I think basic morality is hard-wired into us humans by the One who created us humans.
In the appendix to his The Abolition of Man, CS Lewis included a table of sayings from world religions that agreed surprisingly well with each other. He borrowed the term Tao for this core morality.
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