Texas AG urges schools to implement voluntary prayer law
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wasted no time encouraging schools to test a new law allowing voluntary prayer during the school day in public schools.
“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wasted no time encouraging schools to test a new law allowing voluntary prayer during the school day in public schools.
“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed and prayers lifted up,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday, the first day of school after the law took effect Sept. 1, which was Labor Day.
State lawmakers this year passed a bill allowing school boards to adopt policies setting aside time for voluntary prayer and the reading of the Bible or other religious texts. The law requires each district board of trustees to take a recorded vote on whether to implement the policy within six months, or by March 1. Student participation requires parental consent.
The law also requires Paxton’s office to defend any school district that adopts the policy. The attorney general is empowered to recommend best practices.
“Twisted, radical liberals want to erase truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon and erode the moral fabric of our society,” said Paxton, who is vying for the Republican nomination for Senate in the deeply conservative state.
“Our nation was founded on the rock of biblical truth, and I will not stand by while the far left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”
Paxton encouraged students who may be wondering what to do with the time to pray the Lord’s Prayer, as given in Matthew 6:9-13.
State Sen. Mayes Middleton, who introduced the bill in February, said, “Our schools are not God-free zones.”
“You have to ask: are our schools better or worse off since prayer was taken out in the 1960’s? Litigious atheists are no longer going to get to decide for everyone else if students and educators exercise their religious liberties during school hours.”
State lawmakers this year also approved a separate bill that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. A similar measure passed in Louisiana but is tied up in court.
