SB 10 passed its third and final reading in the Republican-controlled Texas House on Sunday by a vote of 82-46, with a handful of Democrats crossing the aisle to support the Republican majority.
The result now sends the bill to the desk of Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has indicated he will sign it into law.
The measure is likely to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it a potential violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Posting religious texts without context doesn’t teach history, state representative Vincent Perez, a Democrat from El Paso, said in opposing the bill.
“It risks promoting one religion over others, something our Constitution forbids,” he said.
Republican state representative Candy Noble, a co-sponsor of the bill, disagreed.
“The focus of this bill is to look at what is historically important to our nation educationally and judicially,” she said.
In making the case for SB 10, Noble used a series of historical, legal and moral arguments, stressing that the Ten Commandments had been used in textbooks throughout much of US history until a 1971 Supreme Court case forced their removal from the classroom.
Two other states, Louisiana and Arkansas, have similar laws, but Louisiana’s is on hold after a federal judge found that it was “unconstitutional on its face”.
Those measures are among efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools.
Texas lawmakers also have passed and sent to Abbott a measure that allows school districts to provide students and staff a daily voluntary period of prayer or time to read a religious text during school hours.
Abbott is expected to sign that as well.
Supporters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms say they are part of the foundation of the United States’ judicial and educational systems and should be displayed.
But critics, including some Christian and other faith leaders, say the Ten Commandments and prayer measures would infringe the religious freedom of others.
Several Democrats made the point that roughly a third of Texans are neither Christian nor Jewish and do not consider the Ten Commandments foundational to their belief systems.
State Representative John Bryant, a Democrat from Dallas, raised the concern that SB 10 could be used as a wedge for the further introduction of an explicitly and narrowly Christian worldview into public schools.
He noted the difficulty the average public schoolteacher would have in addressing questions by young children about the Ten Commandments, such as the meaning of adultery.
(with AAP)
