Texans say NO to Christian Nationalism
Summary
Americans United is fighting Christian Nationalism in Texas.
In two lawsuits, AU is representing a total of 31 multifaith and nonreligious Texan families who are suing to block a new Ten Commandments law that requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
As Texan pastor Griff Martin put it, “Posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is un-American” and part of a “Christian Nationalist movement that “confuses God with power.”
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Texas is part of a nationwide Christian Nationalist strategy
Everything’s bigger in Texas—including attacks by Christian Nationalists on the separation of church and state. Americans United and our allies have been actively fighting back against policies like replacing qualified public school counselors with religious chaplains, diverting taxpayer money from public schools to private religious schools through voucher schemes, and imposing a Christian Nationalist curriculum that whitewashes history and pushes one narrow religious belief onto students.
What is happening in Texas is part of a coordinated Christian Nationalist effort to erode the separation of church and state. Americans United and our allies are challenging similar laws in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and now Texas.
Texans stand up against Christian Nationalism in Public School
On July 2, 2025, a group of 16 multifaith and nonreligious Texas families filed suit in federal court to block a new Texas Ten Commandments law requiring all public elementary and secondary schools to display a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. In their complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the plaintiffs, who are Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu, or nonreligious, assert that Senate Bill 10 violates the First Amendment’s protections for the separation of church and state and the right to free religious exercise. The plaintiffs also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to prevent the defendants from implementing the law pending the resolution of the litigation. In a victory for religious freedom, the district court granted that preliminary injunction on August 20, 2025.
Despite the district court’s August 20 ruling, some Texas school districts—that were not initially defendants in our lawsuit—have moved forward with displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms. So we joined our allies in filing another lawsuit, on behalf of a group of 15 multi-faith and nonreligious Texan families, naming a new group of school districts as defendants.
Laws requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments violates students’ religious freedom
More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the separation of church and state bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Yet Texas S.B. 10 requires the scriptural postings to be a minimum of 16 x 20 inches in size and hung in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom. The commandments must be printed “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the room.” The law also mandates that a specific version of the commandments, associated with Protestant faiths and selected by lawmakers, be used for every display.
Requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms is Un-Texan
Requiring the permanent display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library pressures students to observe and adopt state-endorsed religious teachings. It sends a harmful, divisive message to students who hold different beliefs that they don’t belong in their own school community and discourages them from freely expressing beliefs or faith practices that are different from the state’s preferred religion.
“Public schools – and the State of Texas – have no place pushing their preferred religious beliefs on my children, let alone denigrating my faith, which is about as un-American and un-Texan as one can be,” said Texan plaintiff Arvind Chandrakantan.
“This law is part of the nationwide Christian Nationalist scheme to win favor for one set of religious views over all others and nonreligion – in a country that promises religious freedom. Not on our watch. We’re proud to defend the religious freedom of Texas schoolchildren and their families,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Case Materials
Texas Ten Commandments Lawsuits
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Texas public schools enroll upwards of 5.5 million students. These students and their families adhere to an array of faiths, and many do not practice any religion at all. Yet a newly enacted Texas law, S.B. 10, seeks to impose one religious perspective on all Texas schoolchildren by requiring Texas public schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Under S.B. 10, public-school students will be forcibly subjected to scriptural dictates, day in and day out. Children of all faiths will be told through these displays “I AM the LORD thy God” and “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”—leaving many of them excluded and uncomfortable in their own classrooms.
On July 2, 2025, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Texas on behalf of a multifaith group of sixteen families with children in Texas public schools. The plaintiffs, who are Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, and non-religious, assert that S.B. 10 is a violation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
Our suit argues that, through S.B. 10, Texas is adopting an official religious text and taking an official position on religious issues in clear violation of the Establishment Clause’s guarantee of separation of church and state. S.B. 10 coerces children to view, venerate, and obey commandments that are against their beliefs and the displays interfere with parents’ ability to direct their children’s religious upbringing. The law therefore also violates the Free Exercise Clause, which protects the right to hold and exercise religious beliefs of one’s choice, including no religious beliefs.
Plaintiffs ask for a judgment from the court that the law is unconstitutional and an order that prohibits implementation of the law and the posting of the Commandments.
On August 20, 2025, in a victory for religious freedom, the district court granted a preliminary injunction blocking the defendant school districts from implementing S.B. 10. In so ruling, the court explained that “the displays are likely to pressure the child-Plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the State’s favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious background and beliefs while at school.” The defendants are appealing the district court’s ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Despite the district court’s August 20 ruling, some Texas school districts—that were not initially defendants in our lawsuit—have moved forward with displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms. So we joined our allies in filing another lawsuit, on behalf of group of 15 multi-faith and nonreligious Texas families, naming a new group of school districts as defendants.
Media
News and Media on Ten Commandments Case
Plaintiffs
Reverend Darcy Roake & Adrian Van Young
“As an interfaith family, we strongly value religious inclusion and diversity, and we teach our children that all people are equal and have inherent dignity and worth. The Ten Commandments displays required by this law fly in the face of these values and send a message of religious intolerance. They will not only undermine our ability to instill these values in our children, but they will also help create an unwelcoming and oppressive school environment for children, like ours, who don’t believe in the state’s official version of scripture. We believe that no child should feel excluded in public school because of their family’s faith tradition.”
Reverend Jeff Sims
“By favoring one version of the Ten Commandments and mandating that it be posted in public schools, the government is intruding on deeply personal matters of religion. I believe that it’s critical for my children to receive and understand scripture within the context of our faith, which honors God’s gift of diversity and teaches that all people are equal. This law sends a contrary message of religious intolerance that one denomination or faith system is officially preferable to others, and that those who don’t adhere to it are lesser in worth and status. As a pastor and father, I cannot, in good conscience, sit by silently while our political representatives usurp God’s authority for themselves and trample our fundamental religious-freedom rights.”
Jennifer Harding and Benjamin Owens
“As a nonreligious family, we oppose the government forcibly subjecting our child to a religious scripture that we don’t believe in. The State of Louisiana should not direct a religious upbringing of our child and require students to observe the state’s preferred religious doctrine in every classroom.”
Erin Hawley and David Hawley
“We instill moral and ethical values in our children through positive concepts, such as love and caring for others, not biblical commandments. As Unitarian Universalists, we strongly believe that every person has the right to undertake a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. That cannot happen when the government forces scripture on people, especially children—who are at the beginning of their spiritual journeys.”
Joshua Herlands
“As a parent, an American, and a Jew, I am appalled that state lawmakers are forcing public schools to post a specific version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. These displays distort the Jewish significance of the Ten Commandments and send the troubling message to students that one set of religious laws is favored over all others. Tolerance is at the heart of our family’s practice of Judaism, and this effort to evangelize students, including my children, is antithetical to our core religious beliefs and our values as Americans.”
Press
Johnson Amendment Case
AU denounces IRS plan to exempt houses of worship from the Johnson Amendment
July 8, 2025 –
Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s President and CEO Rachel Laser issued the following statement in response to the Internal Revenue Service’s reinterpretation of law to exempt houses of worship and religious organizations from the Johnson Amendment, a federal law that prevents 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing partisan political candidates for public office. The proposed settlement was included in a court filing on Monday in the case National Religious Broadcasters v. Long.
AU seeks to intervene in Johnson Amendment lawsuit
July 11, 2025 –
Americans United for Separation of Church and State late Thursday took steps to intervene in the case National Religious Broadcasters v. Long. The federal lawsuit was brought by religious organizations challenging the Johnson Amendment, a 70-year-old federal law that prevents 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing partisan political candidates for public office.
AU joins 1,000 nonprofits to launch national effort to defend Johnson Amendment
August 4, 2025 –
mericans United for Separation of Church and State, the National Council of Nonprofits, American Humanist Association, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Independent Sector, Interfaith Alliance, Public Citizen, and other leading nonprofit organizations launched a national sign-on letter addressed to President Trump. In the letter, the nonprofits strongly object to efforts by the administration to weaken the Johnson Amendment, a longstanding federal law that protects nonprofits from partisan politics by prohibiting 501(c)(3) organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
Ten Commandments Case
AU, allies to sue over Texas Ten Commandments in public schools law
June 11, 2025 –
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union and Freedom From Religion Foundation announced today that they will sue over Texas Senate Bill No. 10, which requires Texas public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Having received final legislative approval yesterday, the bill will now be sent to Gov. Greg Abbott and is expected to be signed into law.
Under S.B. 10, every public elementary and secondary school in Texas must display a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments “in a conspicuous place in each classroom.” The bill mandates that the display be no smaller than 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall and that the Commandments be set forth “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.” The bill also requires that a specific version of the Ten Commandments, selected by lawmakers and associated with Protestant faiths, be used for every display.
Texas families sue to block Texas Ten Commandments law
July 2, 2025 –
On the eve of Independence Day, a group of 16 multifaith and nonreligious Texas families filed suit in federal court today to protect church-state separation, a pillar of American democracy. Their lawsuit urges the court to block a new Texas Ten Commandments law requiring all public elementary and secondary schools to display a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
The plaintiffs in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District are represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel.
Victory! Court Blocks Texas Ten Commandments Law
August 20, 2025 –
In a victory for religious freedom and church-state separation, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction today in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, prohibiting the school district defendants from implementing a Texas law that requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
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