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Long hearing on bill to require 10 Commandments in classrooms pits history-and-tradition claims against coercion and litigation warnings
Summary
Representative Hoverson's bill to require a specific display of the Ten Commandments in K–12 and higher-education classrooms drew long, sometimes emotional testimony Thursday, with proponents citing history-and-tradition arguments and opponents warning of coercion and near-certain litigation.
Representative Hoverson introduced House Bill 11-45, which would require a specific display of the Ten Commandments in K–12 classrooms and higher-education classrooms and buildings. The committee scheduled extended testimony and heard more than an hour of testimony on both sides of the measure; no committee vote was taken.
Supporters argued the measure is constitutional under the recent U.S. Supreme Court shift away from the Lemon test toward a history-and-tradition standard. Tim Barton of WallBuilders and Janice Laura of the Pacific Justice Institute told the committee that the Ten Commandments have longstanding educational and civic uses and that the Kennedy v. Bremerton decision (the 2022 football-coach case) changed how courts should assess historical religious displays. "This was such a common part of…
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