Hey everyone, and welcome back to the nonprofits. Today we're going to Texas, where the Ten Commandments have made their wares into public schools. Demien hasborn, Demien, I.
Do indeed thank you. In an article from KHOU eleven by Ann james On during the twenty first twenty twenty five, comes news that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed Senate Bill ten into law after it passed the Senate twenty one to ten and the House eighty two to forty six.
For those who may not know, Senate Bill ten is Texas's version of the controversial laws that have already been passed by Louisiana and Arkansas legislatures requiring classrooms in all schools in the state to either display a sixteen x twenty inch poster of the Ten Commandments in classrooms or to accept donations of posters of the Ten Commandments. However, the ACLU has already say to that they will issue a legal challenge to Senate Bill ten. Let's go over to the panel for some discussion.
Awesome, thanks daman So. I actually remember talking about this on an episode with some other nonprofits a few weeks ago. Kelly and aj right after a pass in the state House. We were really hopeful. There was a representative in Texas named James Aillerico that was kind of fighting against this, which we were really impressed by because as a Christian Democrat, he was fighting for the in favor of a separation of church and state, which of course at the ACA
we align with that. Now that being said, Damien, the article cludus in on some of the stated motives for the bill, particularly by Representative Noble, that it's foundational to our history and to education. Are you convinced by that or do you think it's more likely that they're just kind of following suit.
I'm not convinced by Representative Noble in the least. So, just to clarify, a Representative Candy Noble is quoted in the article as saying, nothing is more deeply rooted in the fabric of our American tradition of education than the Ten Commandments. The very way we treat others as a society comes from the principles of the Ten Commandments. In these days of court room mayhem, it's time to return to the truth, to the fabric of our educational system.
Respect authority, respect others, and don't steal tell the truth, don't kill keep your word. And I find those very ironic things for a politician to be saying myself. No, I'm not convinced of the educational value of putting the
Ten Commandments up in a poster in classroom. I think if Texas and these other states that want to claim putting the Ten Commandments up as an educational benefit, what they really should be doing is focusing on school infrastructure, teachers, salaries, teaching conditions, you know, enforcing standards in education to make sure that when the children that leave the education system,
have they been educated or have they been indoctrinated. I think that's the big question that they that people need to answer.
Yeah. Absolutely, that's a really good way to put it. I definitely agree that you mentioned like that the concepts she named like that, don't steal the be kind, you know, respect authority, things like that, those don't have anything to do with educating or being educated exactly. And they're not they weren't even novel to the Ten Commandments. Like the things that the things that were that are that are unique to the Ten Commandments are the things that are
about that religion. So uh, and there's only two religions or no, sorry, only uh, two religions in the world that follow those. So, but Jonathan, coming to you, now, do you think that taking you know, steps like this in public education saying yes, this is something that will be included in our public schools. That is that something that could be seen as an extension of states' rights that they can that they can claim the authority to do that, or is it just problematic?
It's just problematic. The problem, of course, is obvious to us. But when people are zealous in their particular religion, it doesn't matter what religion it is. They have the feeling that everybody should be like them and so and we should make sure that everybody's like them so that we can be comfortable in our own skins. But the problem
with that is that not everybody is like you. There are other religions involved, and there are quite a few people who are not religious at all and really don't want to hear your bullshit, you know, so, and that's exactly what it is. It's a bunch of bollocks, as a friend of mine says, and that and if you're going to teach religion, don't claim it's historical. I mean any any and don't claim it's a part of Americana.
Any rational historian who takes a passing glance at the foundation of this country will show you one of the key foundational elements was the separation of church and state. These people had just immigrated from Europe, which has been war torn with religious wars for a thousand years. Okay, they were sick and tired of people killing each other over differences in their belief structure. Okay, so at this point they came over here and said, we're not going
to have that. No religion in government, period. That's what the history says. These people want to make it differently because they don't feel comfortable. They like being the victims, you know, they like, you're repressing our religion. No, you're trying to proselytize. That's against the rules. You know, intolerance is not tolerable in a tolerance society, you know. So
it's like that just drives me nuts. But you know, I just think that the cult wars is all a bunch of bullshit, you know, that they need to come off of.
So you mentioned the persecution complex, but like this is kind of a dub for Christians, right, because they've sort of they seem to have circumvented the separation of church and state. We may not officially have, you know, a national religion, but you can you can imagine this might this might be what it would look like if we did. So. Do you think the persecution complex will finally end? Now?
They're going to figure out a way to play the victim every time they turn around. And you know, it's just not the persecution complex. It's that the people who don't want their kids indoctrinated into Christianity are going to have to homeschool their kids, and that is a big investment. One of the parents is going to have to be home all the time. There's not going to be double income, you know, to pay the astronomical bills that are already high but are going to go higher in the next
six months, so three months probably. But you have to understand that people don't have the ability to do that. So they do get a w for that, because they're still going to be able to put their religion in front of young minds who aren't fully developed yet and don't have the critical skin thinking skills. Some of them do, I know a couple of them, but most don't in order to be able to sort that out and say, yeah, this is crap and this part of it's good and
this part of it's almost crap. You know, they know how to when they start learning how to think, that's when they start getting indoctrinated, because if you do it too late, once they're in high school and their brain is almost put together, it doesn't do it completelyun till age twenty five, but it's still plastic enough to where if you wait much longer than that and they've already formed whatever, they're going to be at that point. So,
you know, and that just drives me crazy. You know that we are we're basically abusing children by forcing religion in the classroom. That's abusing everybody's child. Who isn't that particular brand of Christian They're using a Bible that none
of the Catholics believe is true. Catholicism is the largest denomination of Christianity in the United States true, you know, And so you know, they're they're they're thumbing their nose at the Catholics, They're you know, they're thumbing their nose at the Mormons, They're thumbing their nose at the Jehovah's witnesses there, which of course I don't mind them doing that, but I think it would be better down if they just tried to, you know, at least be nice to people,
you know, but I guess being nice is not a Christian thing anymore. But I'm going to stop ranting right now.
No, totally fair, get let it all out. But Damien, you and I we found you, and I found a little bit of irony. And the same quote from Noble about Mayhem, do you want to do you want to ask man on that?
Look, there was a quote from I think I didn't mention it before, where this representative Noble said, in this time of court, in these days of court room Mayhem. And it's just interesting how the very the number one Republican in the land, Donald Trump, is part of the reason for the courtroom mayhem that you know, he's he's trying to push all these all these legislator, let all these pieces of legislation and executive orders through, and he keeps on getting blocked by the court. And then the
Supreme Court comes and like bails him out. And this is interesting, how you know the GOP are going, Oh, look, these days of court room mayhem that my party is is fueling. As I say, Jonathan made an interesting point about parents homeschooling their children, because it's also fact that lots of Christians homeschooled these children because they don't want to be indoctrinated. They don't want these shorten to be indoctrinated by secular education.
By evolutionists, by evolutionistnessness. It is getting more common, definitely. I have family members who who I guess not so much anymore, at least for the first couple of years for one of their children they were they were homeschooling. But uh yeah, it's it's it's become more common. But it is those pressures and those I guess difficulties that that it comes with that you mentioned to Jonathan, that just makes it, while more popular, less and less viable
as time goes on. So yeah, I agree, like, yeah, there there is mayhem, but like who who has the ability.
To stop that? Who is supreme?
Exactly? Like there's you know you you guys are they're deep in it, so it's like, you know right exactly. So I mean, and we mentioned before the thing that I think is the most that stands out the most to me is that once you ask them to justify the claim that oh this is foundational to our history and to education. And I was like okay, like in what way? And then she lists, you know, these virtues the what do we say, don't steal, don't murder, don't lie.
I mentioned the Sumerians earlier, the Code of Nama or Ornamu sorry, was written in the third millennium, which is like like it was twenty one hundred BC. Yes, sorry, yeah, third millium BC, which is yeah, before the earliest writings we have in Biblical Hebrew. So like, these are concepts that that pre date Christianity, pre date Judaism. They don't come from Christianity. So you could just easily say again.
I said, we are we are social animals and being nice to people and not murdering them. In that is when we were on the savannahs of Africa, probably is asked australopithesies. We had that because we're great apes and that and we're social animals and you don't do that to our own people. Now we were cleannish. We might do it to the guys down there, you know, down the block, but we're definitely not to our own company. Yeah, we have.
Guy, the guy that's going around harming everybody else might harm you and you don't want to be harmed, so you get rid of them. So yeah, we we've have not only are there, you know, secular foundations for these but non Ten Commandment foundations for these principles. So you could just as easily give this same educational and historical value with the Code of Hammer Robbie as you could with the Ten Commandments, if not more, because it's even older.
It's more foundational. If the if levitical law deuteronomical I don't know if that's the word is uh is based on codes that came before it, like the Code of Hammerrobbie, then you get arue that it's more foundational than than commandments. What are your guess that's on that?
Oh? Look the Ten Commandments. Well, firstly, the ironic thing here is that the version of the Ten Commandments that the that Governor Abba wants to put in schools firstly is the King James version, which is like ye old, ye old English, I'm literally reading from it now and like it says, the text must read as follows the Ten Commandments. I'm the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me, those shalt not make thyselves
thyself any graven images. Like if they're trying to put this in for an educational educational content, wouldn't be like, wouldn't be easier to put it in plain English rather than King James, King James English.
Well, now, literature wise, now let me make a point here, literature wise, if they read this when they get to the Bard, you know, to Shakespeare got right there with it.
That's exactly thought. But then like a let clan, then we might.
Have tro to Shakespeare. You read a couple of psalms out of the Bible, you know.
Yeah, maybe not like the whole one. Don't make them reading the whole one.
They're pretty boring.
Yeah, I do find it. Go ahead, so I do find it somewhat interesting though that representative noble, who seems to be one that's really pushing the public case for this, is saying, you know, respect authority, respect others, don't tell the truth, don't kill yet. Texas has in Texas is one of the few states in America that still has the death penalty. I mean, like that to me, just like, guys, do you not see the hypocrisy, do you not? You know?
Oh yeah, it's it's.
Exactly. Now if I can add an update to the case, k h O eleven put out another article I think yesterday saying that sixteen families have actually filed a federal lawsuit against several school districts across the state to block the new law.
Amazing, but you know, and actually I remember now from the last time I talked about this, there was a section of the bill and I don't know if it was amended. Well, no, because I think it's that this was It had already passed the House when we talked about it, so as it was delivered to the governor.
There is a section that requires the state attorney general to act in defense of any school district that becomes the target of a lawsuit, and the state is responsible for paying the if that if that district loses that case, the state is responsible for paying those uh those fees. So the the any laws. Well, but then it comes from taxpayer money, So that that's I actually it's.
Going to come from taxpayer money either way.
So section section maary, the attorney General may settle or compromise any and all claims under the subsection and if you look at at a section, if notwithstanding any other law, a public elementary or secondary school is not exempt as well.
So yeah, So basically they're trying to right railroad the law to open up this this this whole to support the Ten commandmentsy and then saying to the governor general side of the attorney general that you know, you're on the hook for any lawsuit that that comes from this.
Yeah, and so yeah, and it's it's just kind of like a vicious circle of God damn it because look at you know, these families are suing, which I think they absolutely should, but what it will happen is even if they do win those cases, it will be their tax dollars that are paying them back for having their rates violated. So it just it makes my skin crap. Go ahead.
I have question, given that Louisiana and Arkansas already have this legislation in place, hasn't made any notable difference in the education standards of those states.
I mean, I'm not sure. I don't know if it has been in place long enough for there to have been measurements taken.
The Louisiana law is already in the appellate courts from the challenges.
So it's probably like I'm asking, it's like as a dead series question, Like I'm trying to be as impartial as i can to the people that might support.
I'm not laughing at you. I'm just laughing at the situation. To me, it's so humorous.
But yeah, I'm just wondering, has anyone actually gone out and done the studies, like the research collected to the data to go, Look, I think we really should put the Ten Commandments into schools because there is educational benefit in doing so.
Yeah, I don't know if there's been any data gathered on it. Honestly, that's a good question. O.
The Louisiana case, there was a bunch of not studies, but there was a bunch of at least statements about that as far as what would be gained or not gained. I think they had some expert witnesses and that sort of thing. I don't remember a lot about it, So I'm not going to say that it's absolute where it's that I really know what I'm talking about, because they obviously don't. But you know that it's just that I think they did in those lawsuits. They were saying that
it's educational, and the judge didn't buy it. They put presenter on there, this is educational evidence, and the judge said, nope, it's not you. And that's why it went to the next higher court. When it finally gets up to the Supreme Court, they'll make a decision, probably the wrong one.
So you know, possibly this and this actually highlights something else I noted in the article was that so the original article puts this line in, but supporters are banking on the current conservative leaning Supreme Court to overturn that precedent. They argue the Ten Commandments serve a historical rather than
religious purpose in school. And so the fact that supporters accounting on a GOP stacked court to help defend against this legal and upcoming lee we challenge says two things that the law itself is so prima facie unconstitutional that it's inevitable will land at the Supreme Court. And two that people see the court as partial to their way of thinking, meaning that the court is not impartible.
That's correct, which so yeah, huge red flag right there itself is a problem.
Regardless of not just said with the last the last four months of decisions by the Supreme Court in this session, and the decisions they came out with were absolutely unconstitutional. They ceased caring about the Constitution at this point, so you know, at that point we lost our democracy, and so we're no longer a democratic republic.
I think it's a good argument for termal limits.
Agreed, there you go. That would be the original seventeen hundred liberal position on that. I think it was Madison, but I'm not I can't remember. Might have been Jefferson, could have been Atoms for that matter. They were all juxtaposed to each other. But I think it was that you can't have judges not have a lifetime appointment because
then it becomes a political position. Well, they're subject to influence from the outside because they have their jobs to worry about, you know, if they have to get re elected or they have to pass some sort of thing to get there, then that's not being self contained as a judicial element. So you know, that was I think
the rationale for that. However, in the modern day, when we're living so one day where this means that actually there'll be more than two or three presidents before you kick the bucket.
You know, years ago, a lifetime the term was like another twelve years maybe.
Yeah, twelve to twenty years. Yeah, you know somebody who was you know, like twenty when you got appointed. It was only going to be like forty when you passed out.
You know, I'm actually reading the tics of the bill, and there is nothing in the bill about improving education. The bill is literally just to force schools to put a sixteen by twenty inch durable poster, durable poster or framed copy in classrooms. And as you were joking before.
It's never been in a kindergarten class. How do you make a durable poster that will last subjective through five year olds?
As we were joking before the recording was putting on the ceiling that wait, it won't wave anyone.
Don't let it within hands reach of any of those kids. Boy, they'll field there with that.
The law doesn't say where it has to be put. It just has to be visible.
Yeah, it just has to be visible from anywhere in the classroom.
And it doesn't say you can't have rude images on the around the poster as well.
It has minimum specifications, it doesn't have a maximum specifications.
There you go, that's it.
At this point, and that there's nothing else about education and the bell it's just about this, and so it's really clearly like, Okay, some people want to do this, so we're going to make everybody have to do it, so that the people who want to do it are now allowed to do it, and like they won't get in trouble for it. They won't get we'll basically just change the line. They'll just stop doing it again, but they'll be fine.
And we're going to make a completely bs reason for doing it as well.
That we can't back up more than just repeating it.
And look, in all fairness, like if you want to go to a religious school where you know, a school that is run by people who believe in Judeo Christian religion, it's sure, that's okay, send your children to those schools. Yeah, and you can have them have them in a Christian focused education as much as you want. We have private schools here that are run by either the Lutheran Church or the Catholic Church or Anglican Church, whoever, whoever. That's fine.
But I think when it comes to public funded education, like gods just kill.
Yeah, exactly, you gotta. It has to be for the public at large.
And an inclusive I know that's a bad word nowadays, but it has to be inclusive of the other religions as well.
Don't be so woke, Jonathan.
You have a T shirt on that it says woke as fuck, so you know that's my T shirt, So I guess I can be that way.
Fantastic. Well, for our public at large, we want to hear from you. What are your thoughts?
Uh?
Get in the comments.