Attorney General Ken Paxton is not backing down in his commitment to ensure the display of the Ten Commandments in Texas schools. After a federal judge issued an injunction against the practice, Paxton has filed an appeal. As reported by the Texas Attorney General's Office, he is seeking a hearing en banc at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Paxton has also ordered that all school districts not involved in current litigation to prominently display the Ten Commandments as state law mandates.
According to the Texas Attorney General's Office, Paxton argues that "The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of American law," and opposes what he terms as "radical, anti-American groups" that aim to disregard the nation's moral heritage. The appeal is a direct challenge to a district court decision that blocked Senate Bill 10, a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in the state's public school classrooms.
AG Paxton believes there is a misapplication of the 'separation of church and state' argument in this case, a phrase he points out is not explicitly in the Constitution. He insists the nation's history and tradition standard, reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), should be the correct legal measure, rather than the district court's use of the Lemon v. Kurtzman test. The office contends that this outdated test, which was used to establish the level of entanglement between government and religion, should no longer be applicable.
The Attorney General's aggressive push for the displays comes amid parallel legal proceedings in the case Roake v. Brumley, involving a similar Louisiana law. With Louisiana also requesting their case be heard by the entire Fifth Circuit, Texas is arguing for judicial efficiency to have both cases consolidated. In a statement relayed by the Attorney General’s Office, Paxton asserts there's no legal reason to stop Texas from "honoring a core ethical foundation of our law."
