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Christina Milan, a parent with two children attending Cypress-Fairbanks ISD schools, protests during a CFISD Board of Trustees meeting Monday, June 17, 2024, at Mark Henry, Ed.D. Administration Building in Cypress, Texas.When schoolchildren across Texas return to classrooms next fall, thousands could encounter new, Bible-infused lessons.
“With more conservative leaders being elected, and with the U.S. Supreme Court becoming more conservative and issuing a series of decisions weakening the separation of church and state, all of that has emboldened Christian nationalist and other religious right groups,” said Alex J. Luchenister, associate legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a lead plaintiff in litigation over Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law and the Oklahoma superintendent’s Bible mandate.
But in chipping away at foundational constitutional protections, Christian nationalist groups stand to win more than prayer in schools or Bible-based lesson plans. The legal battles playing out in federal courts could give rise to anti-LGBTQ violence and state-sanctioned discrimination against religious minorities.
Why, then, might state legislators attempt to blatantly defy such clear constitutional protections? Luchenister said Louisiana’s legislation was likely “passed with the intent of trying to trigger a lawsuit” that would make its way through the federal courts, in the hopes that SCOTUS would eventually take it up and overturn theprecedent. Indeed, Louisiana has already appealed the district court’s ruling to the 5th Circuit.
“There is a much larger, broader movement that is attempting to erode and destroy the wall between church and state using schools as the vehicle,” said Colleen McCarty, founding executive director of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit against Oklahoma state superintendent Walters, the Oklahoma department of education and the members of the state’s school board.
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