(The Center Square) – The Tennessee Senate passed House Bill 87, which would allow public school systems and charter schools to display the Ten Commandments, a portion of the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the United States Constitution, amid questions from Democrats about the separation of church and state.
“Do you feel this piece of legislation is telling students who are not of Christian faith that they are less than because we are essentially requiring the posting of only one particular religious document versus others?” Sen. London Lamar, D-Memphis, asked the bill’s sponsor, Lebanon Republican Mark Pody.
“We are not forcing religion on anybody,” Pody said. “We are saying in the founding of this nation, the Ten Commandments was one of the founding documents, one of the founding guidance that our forefathers put into this nation.”
Covington Republican Paul Rose said House Bill 87 was a great bill.
“The folks that came over here were not Muslims. They were not Hindu. They were Christians, for the most part,” Rose said.
The Tennessee Constitution, not just the U.S. Constitution, opposes the state endorsement of a religion, Yarbro said.
“I think we would all be better off if this body spent more time trying to follow the 10 commandments rather than trying to post them in every school across the state,” Yarbro said.
The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill in February.
Laws requiring Ten Commandments displays in public schools have faced challenges in other states. A federal judge permanently blocked an Arkansas law that would have required elementary and secondary public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every library and classroom, The Center Square reported.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction barring a new Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms from implementation.
Also on Thursday, the Tennessee Senate passed a bill called the “Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act,” which would allow school systems to teach on the “positive impacts” of religion on American history.
Covington, the bill’s prime sponsor, said there was confusion about the separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president, went to church every Sunday, according to Rose.
“The iconic Washington Monument towers 555 feet above our nation’s capital and right on the top is an aluminum cap that says ‘Laus Deo,’ praise be to God,” Rose said.
Yarbro said he agreed that there is confusion about the separation of church and state.
“I think there are a lot of people on the left that do think you’re trying to protect the state from the church, but I actually think a lot of this is about trying to protect the church from the state,” Yarbro said. “Believers should have a real hesitation before our faith is used as an instrument to endorse the goings on, like of a certain politics or certain political systems or certain political ideologies.”
The bill passed 27 to 6 along party lines. The House version of the bill sponsored by Englewood Republican Mark Cochran is on the March 24 House Education Committee calendar.
