Texas parents can all sleep easier tonight. Especially the ones who think the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause is just an inconvenient speed bump on the road to turning public schools into snake-handling revival meetings.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that he’s launched a statewide probe to make sure public school districts are displaying the Ten Commandments, as now required under Texas law. The investigation also aims to ensure school boards have taken the “necessary measures” to implement prayer time in compliance with a separate state statute.
Because apparently what Texas classrooms desperately lack is government-mandated piety instead of things like funding, better retirements for teachers or the ability to fix their crumbling buildings and malfunctioning HVAC systems.
Naturally, Kenny Baby’s announcement arrives as he barrels toward a May 26 Republican primary runoff against incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Anyone unfortunate enough to have watched television in Texas lately has already seen the two competing in an endless contest to show who can deep-throat the MAGA agenda with the most gargling enthusiasm.
“I will always fight for students’ fundamental right to pray in our schools and work to ensure that Texas kids are able to learn from the Ten Commandments daily,” Paxton said in a chest-thumping statement clearly targeted to the Fox News crowd.
He added that districts must prove they held board votes on school prayer policies and that posters of the Ten Commandments are prominently displayed in every classroom.
Paxton also made sure to publicly identify around 30 districts receiving inquiries, including ones in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano and Lubbock — a handy enemies list for primary voters eager to believe big-city and suburban school boards are turning their children into slaves of Satan.
Of course, a rich gravy of hypocrisy slathers Paxton posturing as the moral hall monitor for Texas schoolchildren. This is the same GOP culture warrior, after all, who’s weathered multiple allegations of infidelity, securities fraud charges, bribery accusations and an impeachment battle launched by members of his own fucking party.
Yet here he is, peddling the Ten Commandments like some kind of unctuous door-to-door Bible salesman with lipstick on his collar and his fly unzipped.
Still, when your opponent is sitting on a massive campaign war chest and Republican primary voters demand an unending stream of performative outrage, why bother fixing public education’s actual problems or going after deadbeat parents?
For an assclown like Paxton, it’s apparently far easier to use the machinery of the state to scream “LOOK AT ME!” while taking another whack at the already frayed barrier between church and state.
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