Texas expected to approve mandatory Bible readings for public school students

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

Texas expected to approve mandatory Bible readings for public school students

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/06/texas-expected-to-approve-mandatory-bible-readings-for-public-school-students/ 🔗

Faefyx Collington (26 June 2026)

The Texas State Board of Education is set to vote on a proposal that would establish a mandatory reading list for K-12 public school students. The list, an oddity in its own right, includes extensive selections from the Bible while snubbing all other religions.

The Republican-majority board is expected to approve the book list today, despite heavy pushback from Democrats and Christians, like board member Tiffany Clark. In opposing the curriculum, Clark said that "Bible lessons should be taught on Sundays." She also highlighted the problem with selecting passages from one translation of the bible over another, noting that "not all of us [Christians] believe the same."

The board's decision will affect more than 5 million public school students across Texas, a population that represents roughly one in ten of all public school attendees in the United States.

The vote comes on the heels of other controversial moves from Texas schools that have blurred the line between church and state while promoting Christianity above all other religions, if not exclusively. In 2023, Texas became the first state to allow public schools to hire chaplains to counsel students. Last year, it was the largest state to pass a law – which a federal appeals court upheld in April – requiring the ten commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms.

[Devlyn ✅]

I mean...sounds like indoctrination...?

[Lori Dee ✅]

a proposal that would establish a mandatory reading list for K-12 public school students. The list, an oddity in its own right, includes extensive selections from the Bible while snubbing all other religions.

Under long-standing Supreme Court precedent, this violates the Establishment Clause, which encompasses the Coercion Test (often referred to as the coercion clause doctrine).

Forcing students to read the Bible, recite prayers, or participate in religious exercises as a mandated part of the school day is unconstitutional. In the landmark 1963 case Abington School District v. Schempp, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws requiring public school days to open with Bible readings were unconstitutional.

In Lee v. Weisman (1992) and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), the Supreme Court reinforced the Coercion Test. The Court established that the government violates the Establishment Clause if it uses its power or "indirect social pressure" to coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise. Because children are highly susceptible to peer and authority pressure, mandatory devotional reading is considered inherently coercive.

The Court explicitly noted in Schempp that allowing a student to opt out or leave the room during the reading does not cure the violation. The fact that the school is sponsoring the religious exercise and forcing a student to choose between compliance and public non-conformity is unconstitutionally coercive.

The Academic Exception: Public schools may require students to read portions of the Bible if the reading is for purely secular, academic purposes.  If the Bible is integrated into a comparative religions course, a history lesson, or an English literature class to study its impact on Western civilization, it is entirely legal.  For an academic assignment to be constitutional, the material must be presented objectively, neutrally, and without promoting the Bible as divine truth or forcing religious adherence.

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I remember the days when atheists were filing lawsuits left and right every time this issue came up, including the display of the Ten Commandments. I guess they lost their spine.

[Devlyn ✅]

I'd just Mickey the Dunce it.

"So you're telling me Jesus was the Gortons of Gloucester fisherman? Mrs Lot was made of Himalayan pink salt? Lazarus rose from his bed?"