Texas Attorney General wants students to pray in school – unless they are Muslims | Texas

Ken Paxton Texas The Attorney General runs for the U.S. Senate and has long believed in school prayers. Now he is rightly sure what type of prayer he wants the state’s 6 million public schools to recite.

Paxton is statement On Tuesday, students are encouraged to say “the Lord’s prayer taught by Jesus Christ.”

The press release includes the full text of Jehovah’s prayer, as the latest examples from Paxton and other Texas officials seem to support the Bible. Christianity Beyond other beliefs.

“Twisted, radical liberals want to eliminate truth, tear down the solid foundations built by American success and power, and erode the moral fabric of our society,” Paxton said. “Our country is built on the rock of biblical truth, and I won’t stand it when the left tries to push our country to sunken sand.”

Paxton’s statement was published when Chapter 11 of the Texas Senate came into effect. This is a Republican legislation that allows schools to reserve time to “pray and read the Bible or other religious texts” during school hours. Critics condemned the bill as a way to make secular public education in the state with the practice of Christianity, a separation of the church and the state in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“They blow by separating the church and the country,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

“They don’t respect other beliefs.

Birish added that Paxton, as well as Washington DC, figures such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, are “those who believe this country is a Christian nation, Christianity should have supremacy.”

Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether he tried to push Christianity to students in Texas public schools.

But it is illuminating to reexamine how Paxton once responded to reports that Muslim students prayed at Dallas-area schools. In 2017, the Attorney General’s Office published Open letter To the school director in Frisco, Texas, expresses “concerns” for Muslim students at Liberty High School and uses a spare classroom to pray while attending school.

The letter said: “It seems that the prayer room is a ‘religious need for dedication’.

In a subsequent press release, the Paxton Office statement: “Recent news reports show that the prayer rooms in high schools … obviously do not include students of other faiths.”

Similarly, “recent news reports” appear to refer to an article in a high school newspaper.

But that articlewritten by 11th grade students, did not mention that this room is a forbidden area for students of other faiths. Instead, this article cites the principal’s observation that “making freedom so high a trademark so high” is the “diversity” of campus beliefs and culture.

“As long as students are led, students are organizing and running it, we are almost one school away from that and allow them to freely practice their religious beliefs,” the principal said.

If Paxton’s office checked with the school district before the open letter, school officials would notice that the spare classroom was Suitable for all students – Not just Muslims – practice their faith.

Paxton seems to be trying to cause controversy over cultural wars with thin air.

“Unfortunately, our state’s top law enforcement officers will engage in cheap Islamic publicity stunts, which will likely lead to increased bullying among Muslim students and establish a hostile learning environment,” the Texas Commission chapter of the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement at the time.

Paxton used to worry about Muslims praying in class, but now encouraged students to say that the Lord’s prayer is consistent with his particular brand of Christian nationalism or dominantism, which attempts to erode any wall between the church and the state and establishes governments based on a far-right interpretation of the Christian Bible.

During public office, Paxton received substantial financial support from ultra-conservative West Texas billionaires who As reported by Propublicaincorporating the state into “the most important Christian nationalist policy laboratory in the country.”

Thursday, Paxton Announce He will appeal to the “Faulty Ruling of Federal Judges,” which prevented another Christian nationalist legislation from entering effect, a Texas school requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms.

Paxton saw in another statement: “The fact that the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of American law cannot be erased by radical anti-American groups’ attempts to ignore our moral legacy.”

“There is no legal reason to stop Texas from respecting the core moral foundations of our law, especially the false claim about the ‘separation of the church and the state’, which is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.”

Paxton’s wife publicly accused him of disobeying the Seventh Commandment earlier this summer, while saying he had an affair in the divorce petition.

Texas political observer notes that this week his Christian nationalist statement could be an attempt to repair his reputation and gain ultra-conservative support in his battle with John Cornyn of the U.S. Senate.

Berrich said that if his agenda and the Republican broader Christian nationalist agenda were allowed to move forward, it would be a “punishment for other believers.”

In a statement to The Guardian, the Texas chapter of the U.S. Islamic Relations Council insisted that students were cautious in public schools saying the Lord’s prayers: “While it would be a noble pursuit to protect religious freedom in schools, the speech of Attorney General Paxton and his history of anti-Muslim residents have continuously improved his religious beliefs, and his religious beliefs are not just religious beliefs.

The panel added: “If Attorney General Paxton wants the school to set aside time to pray and read the Bible, this must include Texas Muslims reading the Quran, Jewish students reading the Pentateuch and the time to keep reading.”

“Only students of all faiths can worship freely on the same conditions without any coercion or preference from the government to maintain the Constitution.”