Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick demands citizens stand for Christian prayers—or else
Dan Patrick’s threats against Senate observers highlight a dangerous mix of religion and government
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On Friday, the Texas Senate opened its session with a Christian invocation delivered by Sen. Angela Paxton (former wife of the wildly corrupt attorney general whom she recently divorced “on biblical grounds”). While she was delivering it, a handful of observers and protesters in the gallery above chose not to stand.
We know that because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick admonished them immediately afterwards, furious that they weren’t giving more respect to his preferred brand of mythology.
… For those of you who didn’t stand, next time you come to the gallery, you stand for the invocation. It’s respecting the Senate. If you don’t stand for the invocation, I’ll have you removed.
We asked you to stand. I’ve never seen a gallery ever have any members in my 17 years of people who refused to stand for the invocation.
It will not be tolerated.
To state the obvious, no one has to stand for the invocation just like no one has to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem. You can stand silently. You can remain seated. You can kneel. Whatever you want as long as you’re not disrupting the others. (As many commentators have pointed out, one person physically unable to stand is the state’s wheelchair-bound governor, but Patrick offered no nuance in his comments. He didn’t say standing if you’re able and want to. He said stand… or else.)
It’s ironic that Patrick believes forced prayer is a sign of respect—as if intentions don’t matter nearly as much as the performance—but that’s been true his entire career. His own website brags about how he put “In God We Trust” in the Senate chamber and how he got the words “Under God” in the State Pledge. (All while supporting bills to harm the most vulnerable people in his state.)
But what he said was also illegal. He had no business threatening anyone with removal from the Senate chambers for not playing along during a Christian prayer. As Democratic State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt pointed out, “the First Amendment protects your right to stand or not stand for prayer in the Texas Senate.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has now sent Patrick a letter calling on him to retract his statement:
Your threat is unconstitutional and discriminatory. Citizens have the right to attend legislative proceedings without being coerced into religious observance. Ordering attendees to stand during a religious exercise is unconstitutionally compelling their participation in religious activity. Conditioning access to government on religious conformity violates the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.
Attorney Chris Line also points out that Patrick, of all people, should know all this given that he once walked out on an invocation when it was delivered by a Muslim. In 2007, when he was a state senator himself, a Muslim cleric was invited to give an invocation on the Texas Muslims Legislative Day. (That cleric was invited by a Republican lawmaker!) Patrick didn’t hear the invocation, though, because he refused to be in the same room while the prayer was being delivered.
He later returned to the floor to give a speech on the importance of religious tolerance. Because Texas apparently banned irony.
"I think that it's important that we are tolerant as a people of all faiths, but that doesn't mean we have to endorse all faiths, and that was my decision," he said later.
"I surely believe that everyone should have the right to speak, but I didn't want my attendance on the floor to appear that I was endorsing that."
If you’re keeping score, Patrick believes it’s okay to literally leave the chambers in order to avoid listening to a Muslim prayer, but the general public has to listen to a Christian prayer, and they better stand up to show their respect or else they’ll be forcibly removed from the room. Even though Patrick believes being in the mere presence of a prayer indicates that you’re “endorsing” it.
It’s not like he understands the hypocrisy. After all, these are the same Texas leaders who insist on further gerrymandering their own state to prevent Democrats from getting elected to Congress while flipping out at the prospect of California retaliating in the same way to punish Republicans.
All of this could be avoided if the Texas legislature just got rid of the invocation altogether. It serves no useful purpose, and anyone who wants to pray is welcome to do so before the session is called to order. The only reason Republicans do it is to make clear that their brand of Christianity and the government are intertwined.
Ironically, Patrick is the Chair of the White House’s “Religious Liberty Commission.” For Christian Nationalists like Patrick, however, religious freedom just means everyone gets to celebrate Christianity in their own ways. The idea that people don’t care for it—or actively fight against it—is blasphemy. His version of religious liberty only applies when it aligns with his faith, enforces the public performance of Christianity, and further cements his party’s power.
The way to respond to this is obvious: More Texans with access to the Senate gallery should show up and remain seated during the prayer. Force Patrick to kick them out and cause a scene—despite doing nothing wrong. That’s what “good trouble” is all about. As much as I would love to see that, though, the burden of responsibility shouldn’t be on casual observers of the Senate. It ought to be on the leaders who set the rules for decorum. Unfortunately, Texas Republicans have no desire to represent the entirety of their state. They only want to use their power to force their will on everyone else, whether it’s by rigging elections or demanding that the public honor the Christian God regardless of their own beliefs.
More broadly, Patrick’s behavior reveals something about the broader strategy of Texas Republican leadership: There’s a relentless insistence on controlling public spaces, public expression, and public conscience to serve their own ideological agenda. If their faith had any value, people would flock to it on their own. But because we’ve seen what Texas Christians do with their power—constantly fighting each other to see who can be more cruel—it’s clear why some people might not want to stand for a prayer.
That’s why Patrick is trying to force them to do it: His religious isn’t worthy enough to follow on its own merits.
Dan Patrick was a right-wing radio blowhard in Houston, and Rush Limbaugh wannabe. This is 100% of what he brings to the table. He's Rush Limbaugh without the towering intellect. Since he only adheres to the King James Version of the US Constitution, it's unlikely that he's seen that part of our foundational document that bans religious tests for holding office in the United States. Dan Patrick is a dangerously stupid excuse for a human being.
𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒, 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑜𝑘𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑖𝑚 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑝 𝑡𝑜 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚.
Pissing on the Constitution. Again.
𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒’𝑠 “𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.” 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘, ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟, 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠.
And here is why. To all of them, the Establishment Clause means almost nothing. They want to make Christianity mandatory. If they can push SCOTUS to declare the Establishment Clause to mean that congress is only prohibited from declaring one individual sect the official Church of the United States, they will immediately try to declare Christianity the official religion. And then it would be only a matter of time before the government definition of Christianity gets narrowed down to their preferred types.
Does Mr Patrick want the Troubles? Because that's how you get the Troubles.