Civil rights advocates are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Texas law that requires the display of the Ten Commandments inside public school classrooms.
The state approved the bill just over a year ago, which requires public school classrooms to post a "durable poster or framed copy" of the Ten Commandments with specifications for size and typeface. The law was upheld earlier this year by a federal appeals court, which also approved of a similar law in Louisiana.
What they're saying:
"The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again," ACLU of Texas attorney Chole Kempf said. "Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion."
More than two dozen families represented by the American Civil Liberties Union have petitioned the court to hear the challenge. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Texas law in a 9-8 ruling.
The families and their attorneys argue that the law violates the separation of church and state as governed by the First Amendment. They said the posting of the Ten Commandments will pressure children to conform to a state-favored religion and interferes with a parent's right to guide their child's religious instruction.
"Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities — not politicians — get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives," Kempf said. "Texas students deserve public schools that welcome them for who they are, respect their religious or nonreligious backgrounds, and give them the high-quality education they need to build their futures."
Paxton investigating school districts for Ten Commandments posting compliance
In a statement Thursday, Paxton said he was requiring more than two dozen schools to "produce documents regarding the display or lack thereof of the Ten Commandments and their policies regarding SB 10."
Federal appeals court allows posting of Ten Commandments posters
In April, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas' law does not violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause or Free Exercise Clause.
What they're saying:
"[The Texas law] looks nothing like a historical religious establishment. It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams," the court said. "It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason."
The court disagreed that exposing children to religious language constitutes indoctrination.
"No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin," the court said.
The other side:
The groups asking the Supreme Court to hear their challenge disagree.
"The question of whether a state may impose scripture on impressionable, captive-audience children—for nearly every hour of every school day, for up to thirteen years—implicates the most fundamental guarantees of the First Amendment and our Nation’s highest ideals," they wrote.
Big picture view:
The Fifth Circuit's opinion overturned a precedent sent in 1980 by the Supreme Court. In that ruling, the court determined that a Kentucky law, similar to the one passed in Texas, violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can "make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In that case, the nation's highest court found that the law had no secular purpose and only served a religious purpose.
"Fifty years ago, the ACLU won a Supreme Court victory against a nearly identical Kentucky law — and we aim to do it again," ACLU national legal director Cecillia Wang said. "In our country, no legislature can force its preferred scripture on public school students and families."
The Source: Information in this article comes from the ACLU of Texas and previous FOX Local reporting.