Three Texas moms cite "religious freedom" to strike down state's Ten Commandments law
The Houston parents say mandatory Christian displays violate the very protections Texas Republicans claim to champion
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Three Houston moms are the latest to sue the state of Texas over a law forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments—King James’ Version only—in every classroom.
You may recall that Texas passed a bill in 2025, appropriately titled SB 10, despite widespread opposition. Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was among those who highlighted the hypocrisy of the people voting for the bill as well as the possible backlash this bill might receive.
Like so many other iterations of these bills, this one said every classroom would have to display a durable or framed 16” x 20” poster of the Ten Commandments. They could be privately donated or bought “using district funds.” All of the posters would have to read as follows:
The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
The law also included a provision requiring the attorney general of the state to defend districts that get sued over this. If they were to lose the case, the state would then be “liable for the expenses, costs, judgments, or settlements of the claims arising out of the representation.” Which is to say if this ended up backfiring on Christian Nationalists, don’t worry, because taxpayers would foot the bill for their ignorance.
According to their lawsuit, the mothers are now demanding that the displays already up in their districts be taken down and no further posters go up as the school year begins—to that end, they want the courts to step in before mid-August.
Emily Roth, one of the plaintiffs, said in a Friday morning press release that the Ten Commandments poster purposefully ignores religious differences in the classroom and will make students feel like they do not belong.
“It teaches students, and their teachers, that exclusion is acceptable, maybe even preferred. That is not a lesson I want my children learning from the state of Texas,” she said.
What makes this lawsuit unique is that this isn’t a federal case. They’re using the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act to make their argument. That law, passed in 1999, says the government can’t substantially burden someone’s free exercise of religion. They’re also citing the more recently passed “Parental Rights Amendment,” which gives parents the right to control their kids’ upbringing.
They say the Commandments literally conflict with their beliefs that it’s okay to believe in multiple gods (Hinduism) or no gods (Jainism) and will pressure their kids to “join the apparent Christian majority promoted by the State.”
You may recall another lawsuit already attempted to stop this intrusion of Christianity into the schools. Last summer, over a dozen families sued individual school districts for forcing religion upon their children—and they were successful for a time. A federal judge ordered those districts to take down their posters… before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision earlier this year. That meant, for now, the posters could go up in any district that receives them as donations or spends its own money on them.
The new lawsuit is an attempt to get around that decision by citing state-level laws.
The three mothers suing in Houston are Roth, Audrey Rosa Nath and Sanjam Kaur Sohal.
Roth is raising her children without religion; Nath is raising her children across a variety of religious traditions found in her family, including Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Quakerism; Sohal is Sikh, according to the press release.
[Meagan] Hassan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said that despite the women’s different religious beliefs they all want the same thing: “for their children to attend school without being compelled to display a message that conflicts with their faith.”
At some point, the Texas courts are going to have to figure out if religious freedom only applies to Christians or everyone else. Laws that were written to benefit conservative Christians are now being used to wipe away attempts by the same group to enforce their views upon children. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
The fact is that by mandating the Ten Commandments in every classroom, the state is effectively telling kids which religion counts—and which ones don’t. They’re sending a message that kids from non-Christian families (or the “wrong” kind of Christian ones) are second-class citizens.
This shouldn’t be a complicated case, either. Texas Republicans passed an illegal law, made up details about American history to defend their position, and practically bragged about their true intentions along the way. Any judge should be able to admit all that while striking down this law before any school has to decide how best to promote Christianity in the classrooms.
(Portions of this article were published earlier because Christian Nationalists are using the same broken playbook as always)
There is no evidence what-so-ever to support the claim posting the Ten Commandments in the public school classrooms accomplishes anything worthwhile. These movements are all about conservative Christians attempting to mark their territory in the public schools that are supported by everyone’s tax dollars. It’s all about attempting to institutionalize the sense of Christian privilege. One of the ironies that goes sailing right over their Christian heads is that eight of the Commandments would be unconstitutional should anyone try writing them into law.
These three women are doing what everyone who believes in the separation of church and state should be doing: using conservative Christianity’s laws written to protect conservative Christians AGAINST conservative Christians.
Texas lets people use vouchers to attend private, presumably Christian schools. Fine: Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and especially atheists should be creating their own private schools and letting people use vouchers to attend the schools. When Texas objects, we simply tell them that they are impinging on our religious freedom.
The Texas legislature demands that all schools and all classrooms have pictures of the 10 Commandments (in King James’ English) posted in prominent places. I’m aware of how religion influences culture, and vice versa. We could have posters of Shema Y’Israel, the first Surah the Quran, passages from the Bhagavad Gita, the Sikh Adi Granth, and especially atheist philosophers (I’d recommend Bertrand Russell for the beauty and depth of his writing). When Christian conservatives object – and they will – then we turn around and say that they’re impinging on our religious freedom.
We’re going to win this argument by using Christian conservatives’ laws right back on them, against them.