Texas Tips Its Hat to the 10 Commandments

By Zack Kendall

Recently, the Texas state legislature passed a bill to get the 10 Commandments into their own public schools, and the ACLU has started the process to sue them over it. The court case they are calling, Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District. The plaintiffs are arguing that the Texas law "violates the First Amendment’s protections for the separation of church and state and the right to free religious exercise."

A modified AI image of a 10 Commandments monument by a Texas school.

So, what does the Texas law do? What can we learn from it so that we can have our own Ten Commandments legislation in Kentucky survive legal attacks against it? Let's start with a summary of what the law does.

Texas 10 Commandments Bill Court Battle Summary

The Texas 10 Commandments bill did all of the following:

1. Mentioned all of the precise words that the plaque or poster was supposed to have (they seem to have picked the KJV version of Exodus 20)

2. Required the 10 Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom in K-12 schools

3. Required that the text be in a size and typeface readable from anywhere in the classroom by someone with average eyesight

4. Required that the posted 10 Commandments be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall

5. Allowed public schools to accept privately-donated 10 Commandments posters that met the other requirements

6. Enabled the attorney general to represent the state of Texas in legal battles regarding the 10 commandments posters

However, there are several things that the legislation did not do:

1. Their legislation did not make it clear that the inclusion of the 10 Commandments was as a historically noteworthy document with literary or legal value (like the Declaration of Independence or Preamble to the Constitution have)

2. Their legislation did not give any freedom or leeway to teachers and principals for whether or not they wanted to include the 10 commandments in their classrooms

3. Their legislation did not make it clear that students still had the choice of what to believe or not

The Texas version of 10 Commandments in schools legislation is super-strong in the sense of getting the 10 Commandments into the schools, but it also seems susceptible to losing a lawsuit, and the ACLU apparently believes they have a good case to overturn it, and they are challenging it in court.

In the process of the bill going through the Texas legislature, someone proposed adding in the 8 Fold Path of Buddhism or adding the Five Pillars of Islam to make the legislation more religiously inclusive, but that was voted down by the legislature. So, Texas’s legislation could come across as a sectarian religious endorsement of Judaism and Christianity and might be overturned by the courts due to that.

So, we will be watching what happens in Texas on their Ten Commandments bill, to see if it holds up in their courts. But we believe that, for Kentucky, we can have Ten Commandments legislation that avoids the legal vulnerabilities that the Texas legislation has.

We can have legislation that makes it clear that the 10 Commandments in the schools will be recognized as a historically noteworthy document with literary or legal value. In other words, we can make it clear that it has a neutral, non-religious function. House Bill 116 introduced earlier this year in Kentucky would have done that. Furthermore, we can have legislation that makes it clear that public school students aren't being required to accept a particular religion.

Why is all of that important? It's important so that the attorney general can make a good case that Ten Commandments legislation for the schools abides by Section 189 of the Kentucky State Constitution. (Section 189 prohibits the public schools from being sectarian. If the ACLU wanted to sue Kentucky over Ten Commandments legislation, they would likely argue their case in part based on Section 189.) If the legislation abides by Section 189 of the state constitution, then it is more likely to be upheld by the courts.

So, even if the Texas legislation fails, we believe we can succeed with different wording in the law in Kentucky, and we invite you to contact your state legislators to support 10 commandments legislation for the schools.

You can leave a message for your state legislators by calling 1-800-372-7181 during normal first-shift business hours.

-------------

Bibliography:

ACLU. "Texas Families Sue to Block Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Every Public-School Classroom." 2 July 2025. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/texas-families-sue-to-block-law-requiring-ten-commandments-in-every-public-school-classroom. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025. Web.

Legiscan. "Bill Text: TX SB10 | 2025-2026 | 89th Legislature | Enrolled." https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB10/id/3247430. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025. Web.

Legiscan. "Bill Text: KY HB116 | 2025 | Regular Session | Introduced." https://legiscan.com/KY/text/HB116/id/3043943. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025. Web.