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A public school district in Tennessee voted to allow a Ten Commandments display to go up in each school—even though they didn’t have to. It’s not just a pathetic attempt to appease Christian Nationalists, it’s a move that could lead to a lawsuit.
That said, it feels odd that we’re even talking about Tennessee.
Over the past year, there have been laws passed requiring classrooms to post the Ten Commandments in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. All three states have faced lawsuits over the matter, and most of the judges have declared those laws to be unconstitutional; lawmakers did it anyway because they see an opening to inject Christianity into the public schools. The bills even said the state would cover a district’s legal fees if they were sued over the matter.
Despite its Republican supermajority, though, Tennessee hadn’t followed suit… until this year.
Back in May, the state passed its own version of a Ten Commandments bill, but HB 47 wasn’t like the bills we saw in other states. This one gave school districts the option of putting up the display in a “prominent” location in each building.
What display? Specifically one that included the full KJV text of the Ten Commandments, the “first sentence of the second paragraph of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence,” and the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
Something like this:
By making it a choice, and by requiring the inclusion of those other actual historical documents—or at least snippets of them—the state was hoping to avoid legal battles.
But you can already see the problem here. The bill requires the full text of the Ten Commandments, but only partial text of the other two. If this is meant to teach kids about our “Founding Documents,” as the title in that image says, why all the focus on a religious list that has nothing to do with the nation’s origins?
Republicans also left it to the districts to decide how big the displays should be. The districts didn’t have to put up anything, but if they did, the only requirement was that the text needed to be in at least 26-point font.
After that bill was signed into law, five school districts agreed to participate: Blount County School District, Rutherford County Schools, Washington County Schools, White County Schools and Wilson County Schools. All five have already been sent letters from church/state separation groups demanding public records about the decision. That could be the prelude to a lawsuit.
It probably doesn’t help that one of those districts, the Rutherford County Schools, already chose the following as their design, making it very clear which document they really care about:
But none of those districts have posted the documents in their schools yet because, at least in some cases, they haven’t raised enough money. Until they do, there won’t be any litigation.
Now the Hamilton County Schools are getting in on the action.
Last month, the board voted 6-4 to approve the plan, despite warnings from one board member, Ben Connor, who said this could lead to an expensive and unnecessary legal battle:
I know from talking to people [in the Tennessee legislature] that they removed it from being “mandatory” because they’re not going to be dumb enough to pay the bill to fight this. They specifically wanted to pull out “mandatory” so some moron school board would vote for it and then be on the hook to pay millions of dollars to fight a dumbass lawsuit.
Sharp language, but he’s not wrong. He voted against the displays. Sadly, he was outnumbered. He probably saw that coming, though, because at the same meeting, the board voted 6-4 to elect a new chair, Jodi Schaffer, whose completely inappropriate introductory remarks included a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer:
That’s the sort of deranged majority that runs this public school board. And now they could be the first to put up those religious posters.
All of these districts will almost certainly be sued if they go through with this. When they are, they’ll likely be forced to pay a hell of a lot of money in legal fees. That’s what happens when you violate federal law—and the law still says promoting religion in the classroom like this is illegal.
It’s irrelevant that Tennessee lawmakers gave districts permission to do this. By going through with it, these districts won’t escape the consequences of forcing religion onto students under the guise of teaching them about American history.
(Interestingly enough, this wouldn’t even be the area’s first time fighting a Ten Commandments battle. In 2002, the Hamilton County Courthouse posted Ten Commandments displays at multiple buildings, only to have a judge declare those displays unconstitutional.)
None of this is necessary. It sends a horrible message to students that the Ten Commandments influenced our country’s founding (it didn’t) and that there’s value in being told they must worship the Christian God or honor the Sabbath (there isn’t). It creates far more problems than it solves.
If and when they’re hit with a lawsuit, it’ll be the fault of those six irresponsible board members for wasting taxpayer dollars to fight it.
Even beyond the fact that the Commandments didn’t influence the Constitution, think about what this district wants to teach students: If you’re coming from a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or other non-Christian family, your beliefs aren’t as valued. No public school should be sending that message. No public school board should be pressuring children to accept their preferred theology.
Students will ultimately pay the price for the negligence of their school board. Money that could have funded teachers, counselors, and classroom supplies will have to be diverted to lawyers who’ll have to defend an entirely avoidable act of religious favoritism. All because a bunch of Christian Nationalists want to gamble that money away on a religious vanity project.
They were warned. They knew the risk. They chose indoctrination anyway.
What an embarrassment.
This again? How many times must they be told that Ten Commandments displays violate the 2nd Commandment?
𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑙𝑎𝑤𝑠𝑢𝑖𝑡.
Gee, you think?!? What was your first clue???
In all seriousness, the issue of the 10Cs in public school classrooms should have been (and mostly WAS) settled ages ago. Sadly, the current outbreak of Christian stupidity makes it the non-problem that won't go away. Doubtless, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists, and other such organizations will saddle up once again to correct these doofuses of their mistaken beliefs.
And waste more public funds in the process.