Texas courthouse unveils illegal Ten Commandments monument, inviting legal challenge
The display outside the Tarrant County Courthouse is a blatant Establishment Clause violation
This newsletter is free and goes out to over 23,000 subscribers, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe or use my usual Patreon page!
In a move that will undoubtedly lead to a federal lawsuit, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office in Texas has unveiled a massive Ten Commandments monument in front of the building.
The stand-alone monument, donated by the American History & Heritage Foundation, exists for no reason other than to promote Christianity and make clear that only one religion is valued by the local government.
In case there was any doubt that this was about promoting religion, the ceremony featured speeches from Kelly Shackelford of the conservative group First Liberty Institute and Tim Barton (son of pseudo-historian David Barton) of WallBuilders.
Shackelford said in a statement that “A country that doesn’t understand it’s moral and religious traditions and background doesn’t know who it is.” Which is extremely ironic given that Republicans are bending over backwards to appease the leader of a wildly and obviously corrupt administration.
Other speakers included Tarrant County Commissioner Matt Krause and County Judge Tim O’Hare.
“This will stand the test of time and be there for many, many years to come,” O’Hare said, speaking of the monument.
Texas State Rep. Nate Schatzline also delivered an invocation specifically designed to exclude non-Christians:
“We don’t just make room for you, God, we give you Tarrant County. Father, we rededicate this land, this county. Tarrant County is the Lord’s,” Schatzline said in prayer.
All of this began in April when the conservative majority on the city council voted to accept the monument as a gift. In defense of it, they argued that it was virtually identical to a monument that sits outside the State Capitol:
There is a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas Capitol grounds, which the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 did not violate the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. [Commissioner Matt] Krause said the monument donated to Tarrant County will be nearly identical to the one on the state's capitol grounds.
That’s a ridiculous argument, though.
The reason the Supreme Court, in 2005, said the monument at the Capitol could stay up was because it was part of a larger set of displays highlighting “people, ideals, and events that compose Texan identity.”
The monument outside the Tarrant County Courthouse doesn’t even bother with those other displays. For that reason, this monument is more like the one outside a Kentucky courthouse that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional.
All of the Christians in support of this monument know damn well what they’re doing here. They know they’re going to be sued. The county already has right-wing lawyers lined up to defend the Christian advertisement. And, because they’re conservative Christians, they have no problem lying about their true intentions:
"The Ten Commandments are a symbol of law and moral conduct with both religious and secular significance for all Americans," Shackelford said in the statement. "We applaud the Commissioners Court for taking this bold step for religious liberty."
That’s bullshit. It’s such obvious bullshit that when Republicans made similar arguments in defense of a law to put up the Ten Commandments in Texas public schools, a federal judge shut it down immediately, saying “There are ways in which students could be taught any relevant history of the Ten Commandments without the state selecting an official version of scripture, approving it in state law, and then displaying it in every classroom on a permanent basis.” The same logic applies here.
There’s no reason to think they’ll get away with this either. It’s a lot easier for right-wing judges to bend the law in conservatives’ favor if the details of the case are blurry. This one’s a slap in the face to anyone who’s read the Constitution.
Hell, later this week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear a case involving laws to put Ten Commandments posters up in public schools. But those laws have involved assortments of disclaimers and other “historical” posters. This monument in Tarrant County doesn’t even bother with any of that junk.
It flatly promotes Christianity. It uses phrasing from the King James Bible, a translation many Christians don’t use. It tells citizens they can’t have other gods before the One True Christian God™. That they can’t make false idols. That they can’t take God’s name in vain. That they must rest on Sunday. That they can’t have sex with people they’re not married to. That they can’t covet what what their neighbors have.
It’s basically a monument listing all the religious rules Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has broken. It’s a list of ten things I guarantee most of those Christians who spoke at the unveiling couldn’t recite without prompting.
There were at least many protestors, secular and religious, outside the courthouse on Friday. The Faith & Justice Coalition of Tarrant County released a statement opposing the monument for moral reasons of their own:
Our opposition is rooted in both constitutional principle and religious conviction. A courthouse—an institution entrusted with justice and equal treatment under the law—must serve all members of the community without religious preference or endorsement. By displaying a monument bearing the King James interpretation of the Ten Commandments, the county elevates a sacred text associated with a particular religious tradition - namely Christianity - above others. This sends an exclusionary message to the many people in our community who practice different faiths or no faith at all, including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Indigenous spiritual communities, humanists, atheists, and others. In a place where residents come seeking justice, no one should feel like an outsider because of their beliefs.
The fact that this monument is outside a courthouse is appalling for other reasons. To quote criticism made by one Democrat against a separate Ten Commandments bill, “by endorsing a state-sanctioned religion, they undermine the foundational principle of religious freedom upon which the United States was built upon.”
None of this is about history, morality, or the law. It’s about power. Christians in Tarrant County want to make clear that their religion—and only their religion—is valued in civic life. If the Constitution says that’s not permitted, then these people would prefer to rip up the Constitution.
The irony is that it’s completely unnecessary. There’s nothing about justice or public safety in Tarrant County that requires anyone to abide by some religious text. Courts are designed to implement secular law through the use of logic and reason and evidence. Religion plays by different rules entirely. This monument won’t help judges make better decisions; it’ll just send a signal to non-Christians that the law is out to get them and that their own government doesn’t see them as truly equal.
If the donors and lawyers involved in this charade were smarter, they would have at least tried to conceal the obvious Establishment Clause violation. When the lawsuits arrive, this won’t be some borderline case. This should be struck down by a judge without hesitation. At least until some conservative judge (or panel of judges) decides the law doesn’t matter anymore.
The only thing this monument shows us is that conservative Christians don’t give a damn about the law, and by putting it up in front of a courthouse, they’re basically declaring victory over the law. Not some particular aspect of it. I mean the law itself. There’s nothing you can’t get away with as long as you’re the preferred kind of Christian.
At the bottom of the monument is another Bible verse: “Righteousness exalts a nation” (Proverbs 14:34). If anyone bothered to read the Bible, they may have found a different verse just a bit earlier in Proverbs 14:5: “A false witness will utter lies.” That verse describes the Christians promoting this monstrosity better than anything else etched into it.
This is just more political theater on the part of the religious-right. It's a win-win for them because they will never pay a price for it. They either get to force their religion into the public square owned by everyone regardless of religious affiliation, or they get to play the poor, persecuted victims of the godless left. It's actually that second outcome that keeps the money rolling in.
Here we go again. It would seem as though Tarrant County hasn't learned anything from Alabama's experience with the 10Cs or Judge's Roy Moore's repeated failures to maintain a copy of those commandments in a public space. This action also reflects considerable insensitivity with those of Tarrant County WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIAN ... not that those promoting this installation care much.
Were they to have to cover the inevitable fines and court costs associated with the coming legal battles, I wonder if their attitudes might change just a touch.