Class-action lawsuit targets Ten Commandments in public schools: Are they right?

By Easton Martin | December 3, 2025

A group of multi-faith and non-religious Texas families have filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block Senate Bill 10 (S.B. 10), the state law that requires a specific version of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. 

The plaintiffs,from Jewish, Hindu, Christian, nonreligious and other backgrounds, argue the law violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause by imposing a specific religious text on all students.

“As a Jewish, Christian, and Chinese American family, we teach our children to draw strength from many traditions, not to see one as supreme,” plaintiff Mari Gottlieb, said in a statement.  

Does having the 10 commandments in schools teach kids that one religion is Supreme over another? Not necessarily, in my opinion. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the 10 commandments in schools may be there simply for the purpose of teaching a baseline general morality to American students, those moral values being part of what shaped the way our nation is run and how our citizens are expected to live. 

I have written previously about why I’m not fully convinced that the 10 commandments in public schools would be some sort of miracle to “bring God back into the classroom”, and why it may present more challenges to Christians. That being said, I think the Plaintiff, Mari Gottlieb, has this all backwards. 

She stated that as a member of a multi-religious family she does not want the 10 commandments in schools because it may teach kids that one religion is Supreme to another. In one sense it really doesn’t. The simple presence of the 10 commandments does not endorse one specific religion. Certainly Christianity and Judaism are in focus, but the 10 commandments don’t specifically endorse one or the other, that is where broader context and teaching come in. 

I see another issue with Gottlieb’s statement, and that is her demand that schools respect her religion: the religion of syncretism. She demands that schools do not post the 10 commandments because she lives in a household which teaches kids to draw strength from many religions, and not to see one as supreme. That admission however is a positive one, an assertion of the religious belief that there is no one “supreme” religion, but that we ought to “draw strength” from all of them. 

Sure, all religions may have some good things here and there, but that isn’t the point of them. Most religions are exclusive in nature, meaning that their claims, if true, nullify the claims of other religions. Religious relativism is a poison which in truth, makes a mockery of many of these faiths and their claims about reality. 

Let’s be clear: the 10 commandments being in schools most certainly doesn’t “shove religion down people’s throats”. Just because I’m not convinced they will be some sort of miracle in our public schools does not mean I agree with the lies of the ACLU or the Freedom From Religion Foundation.