A judge on Friday denied a request from three Houston mothers to temporarily stop Texas public school classrooms from displaying the Ten Commandments, in the first lawsuit to argue that it violates the state’s religious freedom law and a voter-approved parental rights amendment.
The mothers’ lawsuit is the latest challenge to Senate Bill 10 — this time under Texas law. Other attempts to prohibit the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools under federal law — primarily the First Amendment’s guarantee of separation of church and state — have been unsuccessful so far.
The suit demands that the displays be taken down and that the court act before mid-August, when the school year begins. While their request for a temporary restraining order that would have removed the displays was struck down Friday by a Harris County judge, an additional hearing for a temporary injunction in the case is scheduled for Aug. 17.
See here for the background. Right now, that’s all I know. I didn’t see any other stories, so I don’t know what courtroom it’s in or what the arguments were. We’ll get more information next week and another shot at getting this stopped.
Meanwhile, this story about the filing of this lawsuit provided an update on a previous lawsuit.
When children in Texas return to school next week, some classrooms still won’t be displaying the Ten Commandments, however. The Arlington Independent School District said in a statement provided to CBS News that it is waiting for the federal court system to resolve a separate federal lawsuit that was filed against the law back in September by a group of 15 families.
Attorneys for those families told CBS News they plan to petition the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.
“District leadership maintains that federal courts must ultimately resolve the conflict between state law and federal precedent surrounding S.B. 10,” the Arlington ISD said in a statement. “While Arlington ISD has received donated copies of the Ten Commandments, schools remain legally prohibited from displaying them while the litigation remains pending in any form.”
See here and here for more on this lawsuit. The Fifth Circuit put the kibosh on the ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in a different federal lawsuit over the Ten Commandments law. There were other lawsuits filed, I don’t know what the status of the others are, but now we know that at least one set of plaintiffs is aiming for SCOTUS. That’s where this was always going. You know I have no faith in that corrupt viper pit, but it’s all we have for now.
This is the same R judge who gained attention earlier this year for the viral video of him chewing out an IT guy (among other things).
Mollusk, I am not sure your information is correct. The Order denying the Temporary Restraining Order signed Aug. 7, 2026 appears to be signed by Hon. Bruce Bain of the 165th District Court. The lawsuit itself shows that it was filed in the 215th District Court, which indeed is the court of Hon. Nathan Milliron.
I should have dug further, and stand corrected. Thank you for catching the error.
Judge Bain is also a Republican, FWIW.