Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has appealed a federal court ruling blocking the state’s Ten Commandments school display law.
The appeal asks the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case before all active judges. The move escalates Texas’s legal battle over Senate Bill 10, which requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Paxton’s appeal comes after a federal district judge blocked enforcement of the controversial law.
“The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of American law, and that fact simply cannot be erased by radical, anti-American groups trying to ignore our moral heritage,” Paxton said in a news release on Thursday. “There is no legal reason to stop Texas from honoring a core ethical foundation of our law, especially not a bogus claim about the ‘separation of church and state,’ which is a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution.”
According to LegalClarity.org, the exact phrase “separation of church and state does not appear in the Constitution; however, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment “ensures that government power cannot be used to promote any particular faith, maintaining a position of neutrality in religious matters.”
The attorney general filed a motion requesting an en banc hearing, meaning the full circuit court rather than a three-judge panel. Texas argues its case should be heard alongside Louisiana’s similar appeal in Roake v. Brumley.
Paxton contends the district court wrongly applied the Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) test instead of evaluating the law under historical tradition standards. The Lemon test is “a three-pronged approach used to determine if government actions violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The Lemon test requires that, to be constitutional, a statute must have a secular legislative purpose, neither advance nor inhibit religion, and not foster excessive government entanglement with religion,” according to FindLaw.com
The Supreme Court reaffirmed the history and tradition standard in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District in 2022.
Despite the ongoing litigation, Paxton has ordered school districts not affected by the injunction to display the Ten Commandments. The attorney general maintains that the displays honor America’s “legal, moral, and historical heritage.”
The Fifth Circuit has not yet indicated when it will consider Texas’ appeal request.
