Texas attorney general sues state for non-existent religious discrimination
Ken Paxton’s latest legal stunt turns a driver’s manual into a prop for Christian Nationalist grievance politics
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has just sued his own state’s Department of Public Safety, claiming that they’re illegally forbidding religious ads from appearing in the official “Driver’s Handbook.”
But if you’re looking for any evidence of religious discrimination, you’ll be looking for a long damn time, because it doesn’t exist.
According to reporter Cora Neas at KXAN, the lawsuit claims DPS has a rule specifically prohibiting religious advertising in the handbook:
“DPS and the Commission Members have adopted a rule prohibiting ‘religious ads’ in the Handbook,” the filing states. “This rule discriminates against religious organizations’ speech … allowing secular entities to purchase ad space or otherwise engage in secular speech in the Handbook.”
The rule in question is 15.131 (2)(A) in Title 37 of the Texas Administrative Code (TAC):
That rule says the Texas Driver Handbook can have advertising inside of it… as long as it’s not controversial or ideological. No religion, no politics, nothing “offensive,” etc.
Paxton, digging to find a culture war issue where none exists, claims that’s proof right there that the DPS is treating religion unfairly. All they would need to do to prove that is show how the DPS allowed, say, a restaurant to post an ad in the Handbook while denying the same opportunity to a religious group that wanted to purchase an inoffensive ad.
Yet the lawsuit never offers any of that smoking gun evidence. Not even close.
That’s because the current version of the Handbook doesn’t have any ads at all. Neither does an older version from 2012. And that makes sense since no one’s reading this damn book unless you’re studying to get your license, and even then, it’d be downright weird to see product placement in here. That would be like putting an ad in the dictionary.
So even if the law allows for advertising in the book, there’s no proof the DPS accepts it, much less discriminates against certain groups that want to purchase ads. Even if you wanted to place an ad, there’s nowhere on the DPS website to find details about where to send your money.
It’s no wonder the relevant section of the lawsuit, laying out the facts, is only about a page long. Paxton doesn’t need to waste any time lying out proof of injustice because there isn’t any.
Need more proof that Paxton is just trying to gain support among Christian Nationalists by pretending to find instances of religious discrimination? Even though he’s the attorney general, and even though the DPS is another government agency, there’s no indication anyone in Paxton’s office even bothered to make a single phone call to see if their claims had any validity to them.
On Friday, DPS told KXAN that it does not use ads in the driver handbook, and hasn’t had any discussions with the AG about the subject.
No discussions whatsoever. Shocking.
Interestingly enough, Paxton cites a case that atheists won in court to defend his own claims of discrimination.
In 2012, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Freethought Society attempted to place the following ad on buses in the County of Lackawanna Transit System (COLTS).
If that seemed like quite literally the least offensive atheist ad ever, that was kind of the point. It was a year when a lot of atheist groups were buying bus ads and billboards promoting their views, so this group went in a different direction by trying to run an ad with the word “atheist,” links to a couple of websites, and pretty much nothing else.
COLTS rejected the ad, calling it too “controversial.” Somehow. That decision was later appealed but COLTS kept saying no: “We will not allow our transit vehicles or property to become a public forum for the debate and discussion of public issues.”
That ad wasn’t debating or discussing anything. But just to avoid controversy, the group tried once again, this time removing the name and URL for American Atheists.
That one was also rejected.
COLTS soon passed an official policy forbidding all “ads that promote the existence or nonexistence of a supreme being or deity or other religious beliefs.”
The strangest part about that whole story was that the atheist group tried one last time, removing the word “Atheists” but keeping “NEPA Freethought Society” and the group’s URL.
Believe it or not, COLTS said that one was okay.
It was all very confusing. How could it be that the word “Atheists” was too controversial, but “Freethought” was okay? Weren’t they practically synonymous? If anything, their acceptance of the third ad was evidence that COLTS was just discriminating against atheists.
As you can imagine, there was a federal lawsuit over this, and one of the arguments made by the atheist group was that COLTS had accepted plenty of religious ads—for local churches and ministries—while rejecting their pro-atheism one.
After years of legal wrangling, in 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled 2-1 in the atheists’ favor. The majority opinion was written by Thomas Hardiman, a judge who had been on the shortlist for Donald Trump‘s Supreme Court nominations. He wrote that the COLTS policy “discriminates based on viewpoint,” violating the First Amendment.
The whole fiasco resulted in COLTS having to pay out $275,000 in attorney’s fees.
So why is that relevant here? Because Paxton said the atheists’ victory in that case was precisely why he deserved to win his case against the Department of Public Safety… except the two cases are nothing alike.
In Pennsylvania, there was plenty of proof that COLTS was allowing religious groups to promote their products and beliefs while denying that opportunity to atheists, But there’s no similar mountain of evidence—or even a shred of evidence—that the DPS has engaged in any kind of hypocrisy in that regard. They don’t do ads, period.
Even more ridiculous is what Paxton wants from the courts. He wants a judge to step in and forbid DPS from rejecting ads with religious content. Even though they’ve never done anything like that. But Paxton insists the “harm to Texas citizens is imminent” if he doesn’t get his way.
Ironically, his lawsuit doesn’t require the DPS to sell advertising at all. Which means even if he “wins,” the DPS could just keep doing what it’s already doing, and it would be just fine.
Or, to put that another way, Paxton is going to claim victory whether he wins or loses. Because when you’re running for Senate as the most corrupt Republican in the race, you need to make sure conservative Christians remain on your side before your candidacy gets derailed by all the articles about your wife leaving you on “biblical grounds” or all the corruption charges or the alleged affair.
Either way, Paxton isn’t defending free speech or religious liberty. He’s just manufacturing a grievance where none exists, suing a state agency over a hypothetical injury tied to advertising that doesn’t occur, hasn’t occurred, and isn’t even solicited. All it does is plant ideas in the heads of the screenwriters for future God’s Not Dead sequels because it suggests Christians are under siege no matter what reality shows.
Paxton’s lawsuit shows us just how little facts matter to conservatives in our current legal system. They don’t matter here like they didn’t matter to the Supreme Court when they weighed in on showboating football coach Joe Kennedy. When an attorney general sues another state department without evidence, without investigation, and without even a courtesy phone call, it should be obvious that the truth isn’t on his side.
That also tells us a lot about bias against Christians in this country, something the Trump administration insists is a real problem. If religious discrimination were real and widespread, Paxton wouldn’t need to invent it like he is here.
Ken Paxton in absolutely counterfeit. He is as corrupt as they come and always has been. Texas Senate Republicans did not acquit Paxton on the charges that got him impeached, they circled the wagons and acquitted him because he's a Republican. Before he is allowed to present himself as some poor, persecuted Christian, it should be noted his wife divorced him because he is a serial philanderer.
Why confuse the readers with advertisements in an official drivers handbook?