Texas and the Ten Commandments: More Creeping Christian Nationalism

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has not yet ruled in Roake v. Brumley, the challenge to Louisiana’s law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools. The hearing was in late January 2025, and the ruling is expected in “spring,” which has to be soon.

Texas charged ahead with its own Ten Commandments law, anyway. The effort was spearheaded by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is on the record as strongly supporting Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is the idea that the U.S. should be a “Christian nation,” with Christian doctrine (more precisely, an unusual and restrictive interpretation of Christian doctrine) guiding law and public life.

As I have put it here before, Christian nationalism is a kind of religious extremism that aspires to become religious oppression. It is unChristian and unAmerican.

The religious extremists trying to push through these Ten Commandments laws know that state schools promoting specific religious doctrines is a violation of the First Amendment’s anti-establishment and free exercise clauses. Those clauses require that governments not promote or favor any religion. Besides the plain sense of the text of the Constitution, there is a lot of case law to support this interpretation—including cases in which the Supreme Court has specifically rejected “Ten Commandments in public schools” laws.

In May 2025, an Oklahoma law to use public funds to support religious charter schools was rejected by the Supreme Court. The outcome was a bit of a surprise, and a relief, to those who had lost faith in the religious neutrality of the Supreme Court after Gorsuch, Kavanah, and Coney Barrett were appointed to the bench. But Coney Barrett recused herself, leading to a 4-4 tie. In baseball, a tie goes to the runner; in the law, a tie means the lower court ruling remains in force. In this case, the lower court ruled that the Oklahoma law violated the separation of church and state. Score one for the Constitution, this time.

We shouldn’t have to rely on lucky breaks to get the right results out of the country’s highest court. The Constitution makes no mention of religion except to say that the government should stay out of it.

We shouldn’t have to rely on the courts in these matters at all. Elected officials at the state level (including governors, representatives, and senators) all take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. When they pass or attempt to pass religiously motivated laws, they are thereby violating their oaths. It would be nice if they were impeached for it, but that is unlikely given the ideological makeup of the state houses in question.

Elected state officials might have a leg to stand on if they were trying to implement these extremist religious laws because that’s what The People want. That is not the case, though: About two-thirds of Americans are against or skeptical of Christian nationalism. Many religions are strongly against the state promoting any religious doctrine, including their own.

Even if The People were for more religion in government, there would still be good reasons not to do it, leaving the Constitution aside. Freedom of conscience is one of the most fundamental rights, and any time a government makes it legal or illegal to believe something that is a matter of conscience, they thereby violate this crucial freedom. Laws bearing on religion always lead to the oppression of someone.

So why is this religious extremist minority trying to push through these blatantly unconstitutional laws? I call it “creeping Christian Nationalism”: Through a slow drip of small changes and public remarks, they aim to make their religious extremism seem mainstream. Katherine Stewart, Andrew Seidel, Kevin Kruse, Rachel Maddow, and others make this historical case crystal clear: There is no doubt that it is a deliberate strategy, played out over decades and backed by huge amounts of money. The latest iteration is Project 2025, which we have already seen being implemented in DJT’s second term.

Christian nationalists are counting on the laws they keep proposing being rejected by lower courts, so that they can make a lot of public noise with the appeals, and in the hope they can eventually sneak one by. Capturing the Supreme Court was a generational project by Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, and others, and its success has made it possible for Christian Nationalists to begin to reshape the country to their extremist whims, against the Constitution and against the will of The People.

Fortunately, lower courts are still holding the line. The Supreme Court may yet disappoint the extremists trying to force their narrow religious doctrines onto the rest of us. And even if the extremists succeed, the fact that only a small minority of Americans actually want these policies, means that in future elections we can replace the representatives who created these bad laws, repeal the laws themselves, and reform the Supreme Court. In the meantime, we have to resist Christian Nationalism at every turn.

One way to help is to donate to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, or to the ACLU, both of which are deeply involved in defending the Constitution both in legal cases and in the courtroom of public opinion.

Another way to help is to share this post widely: Thank you!