The Texas Legislature today passed SB 763, which would allow school districts to employ chaplains and appoint them to volunteer positions. Chaplains would be compensated using funds earmarked for school safety. […]
Religious Freedom
The Texas Freedom Network supports the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state, which protects the right of all Americans to practice the faith of their choice, or none at all, free of government interference.
Unfortunately, efforts to knock down that wall are a constant in Texas. Politicians and extremists continually work to impose their views on others, especially around issues like abortion, access to contraception, and LGBTQIA+ equality. And in a distortion of the principle of religious freedom, far-right groups have supported legislative efforts to allow people to use religion as an excuse to ignore laws they might not like and even as a weapon to discriminate against others.
Resources
- Prayer in Public Schools: A Primer (2001 report)
- The Texas Faith-Based Initiative (2002 report)
- The National Day of Prayer Task Force: Turning a Day of Faith into a Rally for the Christian Right (2005 Report)
- A Report on The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (2005 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools (2006 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion II (2013 report)
- Can This Class Be Saved? The ‘Hobby Lobby’ Public School Bible Curriculum (2014 report)
- Turning Texas Public Schools into Sunday Schools? A Review of the State’s Proposed K-5 Reading Curriculum (2024 report) | Executive Summary
Texas Freedom Network Celebrates Failure of Bill Requiring Display of the Ten Commandments in Public Schools
The Texas State House last night passed the midnight deadline to vote on Senate Bills, marking the death of a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools across the state. […]
TFN President Warns Against New Wave of Discriminatory Religious Exemptions Bills
Republican lawmakers in the Texas Capitol are once again pushing bills that seek to turn religious freedom into a license to discriminate. These bills are intended to slow or stop altogether progress toward equality for LGBTQ Texans. Check out our press release today. […]
It’s Over: A Look Back at the 86th Legislative Session
The 86th session of the Texas Legislature is history. Lawmakers left town on Monday following a session that, generally speaking, had fewer of the culture war fights we’ve come to expect. You can attribute that to elections, and it seems the results of last November have elected officials worried about their fates at the ballot […]
TFN STATEMENT ON THE END OF THE 2019 LEGISLATIVE SESSION
We just sent out the following statement on the end of the 2019 session of the Texas Legislature. […]
