Texas’ new “Religious Liberty” committee is another Christian power grab
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick handpicked lawmakers who want conservative Christianity embedded in public life
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Recently, in another desperate attempt to assure Texas that it’s a state welcome only to Christians, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced the formation of the “Senate Select Committee on Religious Liberty.” It’s basically a replica of what Donald Trump created at the federal level—a group that pretends to care about religious liberty for all but actually cares only about advancing conservative Christianity.
And if you need evidence of Patrick’s intentions, all you need to do is see who he put on the committee: Six Republicans and one token Democrat. And those six Republicans are very openly against the notion of church/state separation:
Sen. Phil King (Chair) recently sponsored the bill to force Ten Commandments posters in public school classrooms across the state because he said he wanted kids to “look on the wall and read… those words that God says because we want them to understand how important that those statements of God, those rules of God.”
Sen. Angela Paxton (Vice Chair) is the former wife of the wildly corrupt attorney general Ken Paxton whom she divorced “on biblical grounds.” But make no mistake: She’s a zealot, too. When she delivered an invocation last August and some protesters refused to stand, Patrick himself stepped in to admonish them and threaten their removal from the chamber, a move Paxton herself didn’t question… even though there’s no law requiring anyone to stand for religious prayers.
Sen. Brent Hagenbuch is the sort of person whose political campaigns include signs like this one, saying his top priority in office is making “Christian/family values our foundation again.” That sign equates Christianity with “family,” suggesting that non-Christians don’t have family values worth admiring.
Sen. Adam Hinojosa, a Catholic, bragged about delivering Ten Commandment posters to public schools in his area, while celebrating that law and a separate Bible-in-school bill as ways to bring “Christian values back to our state.”
Sen. Bryan Hughes is the sort of anti-abortion nut who falsely believes the Founding Fathers “honored the Lord through our constitution” and posts Bible verses online.
And Sen. Charles Perry is a guy who cites Bible verses to justify the suffering of refugees and spoke at a conference for an anti-Muslim hate group to tell the crowd that ISIS represented “true Islam.”
The lone Democrat in the mix, Sen. César Blanco, is also Catholic and said he was proud to be included in this group because he believes in “the right of every Texan, regardless of faith or belief, to practice freely, without interference and without having another set of beliefs imposed on them.” That sounds great, and I have no doubt his intentions are sincere, but let’s be honest: He’s only there to give Patrick and the other members plausible deniability when people accuse them of creating a conservative Christian group to advance conservative Christian ideas.
Blanco doesn’t seem to acknowledge—or care—that he’s being used.
It’s not like the intentions of the group are secret. Patrick, who’s also Chair of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, made his mission very clear in a press release:
… Through the [federal Religious Liberty] Commission’s important work, I have learned that many Americans, and Texans alike, do not fully understand their God-given religious liberty rights secured under the First Amendment. Today, I am appointing the Senate Select Committee on Religious Liberty to find ways to educate Texans on their religious liberty rights and to make sure Texans do not have those rights infringed upon.
The irony, of course, is that the religious freedom of many Texans are being trampled upon by the Christians on this committee. Republicans in the state have passed law after law imposing conservative Christian “values” on everyone else—making life miserable for LGBTQ people, anyone who needs an abortion, and non-Christians who don’t want Christianity shoved in their faces in public schools. Hell, the state was recently sued over the exclusion of Muslim schools in its voucher program.
Honestly, why do they even need a commission like this when Texas Republicans are already prioritizing the Bible over the Constitution anyway? (Answer: They don’t. It’s just for show.)
Maybe Patrick is trying to make sure a version of this pointless committee exists in Texas because the federal one is pure chaos. They’ve already been sued for pro-Christian bias, and more recently, Patrick kicked out member Carrie Prejean Boller because she dared to question their definition of antisemitism. (Boller didn’t believe the “antisemitism” tag applied when people criticized the government of Israel. She also said the genocide in Gaza wasn’t pro-life.)
Much like the federal version of this committee, then, Patrick is pretending he’s supporting religious freedom when the truth is he just wants to advance conservative Christianity. The only question is whether white Christian voters in the state will see through the charade or whether they’ll do what they always do and overwhelmingly vote for the cruelest representatives of their religion to do in the legislature what their pastors should be doing in church: making the case for their values.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has already called out the sham group for what it is:
“Just like President Trump’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission, which Patrick chairs, this committee isn’t about protecting religious liberty — it’s about undermining true religious freedom,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Religious freedom under our secular Constitution means the right not just to believe, but to disbelieve. It does not mean the right to impose your religion on others or to claim exemptions from laws that protect public health and civil rights because of your religion.”
The committee’s mandate raises concerns about its purpose. With a leadership structure closely aligned with Patrick’s political priorities, the body appears designed to promote a predetermined ideological outcome rather than conduct a balanced or meaningful review.
FFRF can only call out the group for now because it literally hasn’t done anything yet. No meetings have been held. No agenda items have been announced. No consequences have come from it. When they happens, though, and if it’s illegal, it’ll be a different story.
Any time I see "liberty, freedom or patriot" in an organization or group's name. I know they are fascists.
I live in the DFW metroplex and I must admit, I once traveled nearly half a mile without seeing a church! Shocking, I know! Dan Patrick was a Houston radio gas bag and Rush Limbaugh wannabe as well as a four-star religious nut job. That is 100% of what he brings to the table. Like most fervent evangelicals, Patrick cares about no one’s freedom of religion other than his own, and he wants nothing more than to force it on everyone in the name of saving America.