AUSTIN — A new Texas law provides public school teachers with immunity from prosecution for violating the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment clause calling for separation of church and state, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath testified Monday in front of state lawmakers.
The Texas House Committee on Public Education met on Monday to discuss, among other things, the benefits of school vouchers.
During the hearing, State Rep. James Talarico, an Austin-area Democrat, grilled Morarth on new educational materials revised under House Bill 1605., HB 1605, passed last year by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, was designed to provide teachers with state-approved lesson plans and make those materials available to parents via an online portal. However, critics charge that Christian evangelicals have used the bill to insert Christian-centric lessons into the approved lessons.
"Then why does the bill, at the bottom of page 5, explicitly give teachers who use this new curriculum immunity for violating the Establishment Clause in the United States Constitution?" Morath deflected, saying he didn't understand Talarico's question. "When you're talking about religion, when you're talking about faith, you're talking about theology, you're working with fire," said Talarico, who's also a student of Austin's Presbyterian Theological Seminary."These are serious topics — the most serious topic in many of our lives. And so, to me, this seems not only reckless, but it seems it could do great harm to students, whether they're Christians or not.
Texas Christian Centric Reading Lessons Texas Education News State Rep James Talarico Texas House Bill 1605
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