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Austin-area mom Brittany McFarland explains why she welcomes the Ten Commandments in her kindergartner’s public school classroom and pushes back on claims the displays impose religion as Texas families ask the Supreme Court to block the law.
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As roughly two dozen Texas families fight to keep the Ten Commandments off public school walls, one Austin-area mom is making no apologies for wanting them in her kindergartner’s classroom.
Brittany McFarland, a Christian mother whose 5-year-old daughter attends public school in Texas, told Fox News Digital she was “pleasantly surprised” by the new classroom displays and said the fierce backlash over them reflects a much bigger battle over faith, values and religious liberty in America’s public schools.
“I feel like our country, we’ve been kind of forced to erase religion and discussion of religion in schools in general,” McFarland said. “Almost to the point where the topic is taboo, and our children are afraid and uncomfortable to mention their faith or talk anything about it.”
McFarland said she and her husband had weighed whether public school was still the right choice for their daughter, but said learning about the Ten Commandments law gave her a “sense of hope” about the direction of public education.
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Anna Dollar (2nd L) of Boone, NC, and Deanna Gosnell (R) of Avery, North Carolina, hold posters during a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to support the Ten Commandments March 2, 2005, in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court heard two cases on whether Ten Commandments monuments should be displayed on government properties. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“It gave me a renewed sense of hope in our school systems,” she said.
The fight is straightforward. Texas requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and roughly two dozen families want the Supreme Court to block the law.
The families, represented by groups including the ACLU, argue the state is crossing a constitutional line by putting a religious text in public school classrooms. They say decisions about a child’s religious upbringing should be left to parents and faith communities, not the government, and warn the displays could make students from other religious or nonreligious backgrounds feel excluded or pressured.
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Roughly two dozen Texas families fight to keep the Ten Commandments off public school walls. (iStock)
Texas has defended the law, and a federal appeals court upheld it, reasoning that students are not required to recite the Ten Commandments, believe them or affirm their religious origins.
Now the families are asking the Supreme Court to step in. The justices have not yet agreed to hear the case. If they do, the dispute could become a major test of how the First Amendment applies to religious expression in public schools.
McFarland rejects the characterization that simply displaying the Ten Commandments amounts to imposing Christianity on students.
“I look at the Ten Commandments as a reminder to do the right thing,” she told Fox News Digital. “They’re good standards for children to be exposed to.”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott attends a press conference celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows a Ten Commandments monument to stand outside the Texas State Capitol June 27, 2005, in Austin, Texas. (Jana Birchum/Getty Images)
McFarland pointed to commandments against stealing and the instruction to honor one’s father and mother as examples of principles she believes have value for children.
“These are things that we should be talking about in our homes and in our classrooms,” she said.
McFarland also stressed that, based on what she has seen in her daughter’s classroom and others, the Ten Commandments are not being presented as something students must recite or affirm.
“It’s not like you’re walking to the classroom and you’re seeing a five-by-six poster with it in huge font, right, front and center. That’s not what’s happening,” she said.
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Students recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Norfolk, Virginia, 1941. (John Vachon via Library of Congress/publc domain)
“I don’t see this posting historically significant religious text as imposing religion at all. It’s not like the children are having to recite it. It’s not like they’re standing up and giving a Pledge of Allegiance to it. It’s nothing of that sort.”
McFarland said her school district recently informed parents that teachers are instructed to tell students who ask about the poster that it is displayed because of Texas law. According to the message McFarland read to Fox News Digital, teachers would contact parents if students asked specific questions about its contents rather than providing religious instruction themselves.
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A child clasps their hands in prayer over a Bible outdoors, symbolizing faith at the center of a recent court battle involving Texas and the Ten Commandments. (iStock)
“To me, that’s not imposing religion upon anyone,” McFarland said. “That’s giving them the opportunity to go home and talk about it. It’s opening up conversation that can occur within the home and the walls of your home.”
Opponents, however, said the fact that students are not required to recite the text does not resolve their concerns. The ACLU has described the displays as government-imposed religion and argues they could lead to religious coercion, bullying or stigmatization. Some parents involved in the challenge said the mandate could make children who follow other faiths or no faith at all feel that the state favors one set of beliefs over their own.
An Austin interfaith couple involved in the case has also argued that parents, rather than politicians, should decide how their children receive religious education.
McFarland said she actually agrees with that principle, but disputes that a classroom display constitutes religious instruction.
“I would actually tend to agree with the family that politicians shouldn’t have a role in how teachers are specifically teaching religion to our children or trying to influence them on religion,” McFarland said. “However, I see this very differently.”
“To me, having a poster up is not teaching your child that religion,” she added.
McFarland compared the distinction to a student seeing a human anatomy poster hanging in a health classroom, arguing that the presence of the material does not mean the child is being forced to receive instruction about everything depicted on it.
She also pushed back on concerns that young children could feel pressured to adopt the religious beliefs contained in the Ten Commandments.
“Five-year-olds can’t read, for the most part,” McFarland said, adding that she does not believe her daughter is entering the classroom, reading the poster and feeling pressure to embrace a particular faith.
“Religion should not be taught from the teachers or enforced by the teachers, but this isn’t that,” she said.
A six-foot high tablet of the Ten Commandments, which is located on the grounds of the Texas Capitol Building in Austin, Texas, is seen on February 28, 2005. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)
McFarland said she believes the controversy has become about something larger than the physical display itself.
“I don’t think that this fight is really a poster in the classroom,” she said. “I think it’s about religious liberties.”
At the same time, McFarland said she believes students would benefit from learning more about faith traditions beyond their own.
“I think this is where our country could do a lot better, actually,” she said. “If we took more time to learn about other faiths and other religions, we could see the good in other people and respect them, even though we have differences.”
McFarland said Americans should be able to acknowledge those differences without treating them as inherently threatening.
“We need to stop finding so many differences and we need to see the good in our differences,” she said.
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For McFarland, the debate ultimately comes back to what she wants her daughters to learn about expressing their own beliefs.
“I want my daughters to stand up for what’s right,” McFarland said. “I teach my family that if you stand for nothing, you’re gonna fall for anything.”
“Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed to stand up for your religious beliefs,” she continued. “We just need to stand up and use our voices.”
Fox News’ Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price is a
