Tim Barton: We "arrest students that break the Ten Commandments," so we should put the list up in schools

Laws against theft and murder do not justify putting up a list of religious rules in public schools

This newsletter is free, 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 to Substack or use my usual Patreon page!

---

Here’s a perfect example of how Christian pseudo-historian David Barton and his son Tim Barton take small nuggets of truth, then misleadingly blow them out of proportion to justify their brand of Christian Nationalism.

On Tuesday’s episode of The WallBuilders Show, the Bartons, host Rick Green, and Texas State Senator Phil King were all discussing recent bills to shove the Ten Commandments in public schools, including one King recently co-sponsored. Whenever these bills are discussed in their various state committees, the Bartons often appear in person to make a case for why there’s historic (not religious) justification for passing these bills and shoving the Commandments in kids’ faces.

Their arguments have been repeatedly debunked—by historians and judges—but the Republicans they speak to either don’t know that or don’t care about it. So the Bartons’ lies continue spreading.

King explained on the show that the Commandments were “integral” to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence (not true), that the Commandments were posted “in classrooms and buildings… all across our country until 1980” (also a lie), and that children “can't really understand what it means to be a Texan, what it means to be American” unless they know the Ten Commandments (never been the case). He also said a goal of this bill was to appeal any legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court so that their right-wing allies could finally eliminate the obstacles standing in the way of this kind of Christian Nationalism.

But the part that really gave away how shallow these arguments are came just after that interview when Green spoke with Tim Barton.

Tim Barton (screenshot via YouTube)

Tim explained that when he and his dad speak in front of legislatures about the Commandments, David talks about the “history and tradition” parts while Tim focuses on the moral elements. That’s when he offered the dumbest defense of the Commandments you’ll ever hear:

… And then my dad usually—I don't need to speak for you, dad, but you usually give some of the historic background to show the history and tradition of the Ten Commandments.

And then I will often give some of the moral aspect, in addition to a little bit of the history aspect.

And one of the obvious questions that—it should not be controversial or complicated—I kind of pose, Why? Why would we think it's okay to arrest students that break the Ten Commandments, but not okay to show them the Ten Commandments, to teach them it's wrong, right?

We would arrest him for murdering. We'd arrest them for stealing. But you're gonna say it's inappropriate to show the kids the Ten Commandments that would teach them it’s wrong to murder and steal?

And so just pointing out some of the hypocrisy, the irony… There's a lot of moral components we can give, but we're almost out of time. But that's certainly something that is valuable in that conversation.

To summarize: Tim Barton says the Ten Commandments should be posted in classrooms because it says murdering and stealing are bad—so bad that we arrest people for them!—oh and we’re almost out of time so I guess we can’t talk about the other eight Commandments.

They never want to talk about the other Commandments.

To state the obvious, then, Tim Barton is lying when he says “we think it's okay to arrest students that break the Ten Commandments” because we absolutely don’t do that.

If the Bartons wanted to put up signs saying stealing and murder are wrong, we’d be having a very different conversation. But that’s not what they want to do. That’s just cover for what they actually want to do, which is push their religious mythology in front of children.

We don’t arrest people for worshiping different gods, or making false idols, or saying “Goddamn,” or working on Sundays, or fighting with their parents, or having sex with people they’re not married to, or coveting what others have. We don’t punish that because most of those things are flat-out idiotic while some others are ethical beliefs that come with lots of grey areas. (There are times when parents should not be obeyed! Ethical non-monogamy is a real thing!)

The reason the Bartons don’t mention those things is because even they know the majority of the Ten Commandments are religious rules that deserve to be mocked, not the basis for a secular legal system. Murder and theft were punished by different societies long before the Ten Commandments rolled around, so using the most non-problematic parts of the list to rationalize posting the entire thing is laughable on its face.

But this is the best argument the Bartons have because there are no good reasons to put the Ten Commandments in public schools. So they lie and pretend the list is secular by simply never mentioning the religious parts of it and hoping no one will notice.

(via Right Wing Watch)

---