Needless ‘Religious Expression’ Bill Throws House Into Chaos

One would think, if the House were to descend into utter chaos and border on total revolt, it would be over something important, like children’s health insurance, appropriations, or abortion.

Oh, but no. Texas House Republicans, who, through their zeal to legislate religion and morality over the last three sessions have nearly surpassed the Moral Majority in the piety department, managed to send the house into disarray (General Dissarray, if you will…) over a bill that would turn Texas public schools into chambers of proselytizing, temples of excessive evangelism, and even boxing rings for fights over religion.
The bill in question was on the Committee Substitute to House Bill 3678, the so-called “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act” or the “Schoolchildren’s Religious Liberties Act.”

Don’t let the name fool you, though. It’s nothing about ending discrimination or “religious liberties.”

The bill would, in fact, require school districts to treat a student’s expression of a religious viewpoint the same as a secular viewpoint.

In addition, ISDs would be forced to create a forum for students to express their religious viewpoints at any school sponsored event where a student is expected to speak. In other words, pep rallies would become Baptist Camp Meetings and graduations would become opportunities for lengthy sermons.
And that’s not the worst of it! HB 3678 would also allow students to express religious viewpoints in class assignments. While students can already do that to a great extent in pieces that allow for student opinion (essays, etc.), HB 3687 would essentially allow a biology student to write an essay quoting the creation story of Genesis in response to an assignment on evolution and be placed on the same footing as someone who analyzed Charles Darwin’s theories. It’s bunk with a capitol ‘B.’
And, the math club and chess club (and, perhaps, the football team if it is considered “non-curricular”) might as well move over because they could be forced to cede their space to the Baptist Student’s Club, the Catholic Club, the Muslim Student Association, and the Jewish Student’s Association and whatever other religious clubs happen to crop up for the various and sundry protestant-Christian, Judeo-Christian, and Eastern religions that desire space.

While the legislation provides that there can be no discrimination based on the religious content of the students’ expression, you can bet that anything that’s not Christian will be discriminated against (after all, we are in Texas). This, of course, will result in dozens of school districts being forced into costly litigation.

Back to the topic at hand, though, this bill is the bill that sent the House into chaos yesterday.  This bill—this piece of total and utter nonsense. From QR:

Much of the debate centered on rights of minorities to freedom of expression. So, it seems only appropriate that 25 House members would sign on to a resolution restricting the free speech rights of their colleagues by shutting down the amendment process to on this controversial bill. The Calendars Committee scheduled it for floor debate, so what is the problem with a debate?

Putting the merits of the bill and the amendments aside, the procedure of shutting down the amendment process in an otherwise free wheeling House is exceedingly rare and revealed the gaping wounds that still haunt the institution.

The irony is palpable.

Indeed it is. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) moved to have the names read, a motion which was initially ignored and Rep. Will Harnett (R-Dallas) said the reading of the names wouldn’t be productive.

But, Thompson wasn’t to be deterred.

The list was ultimately read and was (and this includes the missing names from QR’s list): Aycock, Callegari, Chisum, Darby, Flynn, Hughes, Hopson (a Democrat!), Hill, Harless, King, P.,  Morrison, Macias, Miller, Murphy, O’Day, Orr, Otto, Patrick, Pickett, Pitts, Smith, Taylor, West, Zedler and Zerwas.
A formal motion to limit amendments failed (vote not yet online).

After all this uproar, the bill was pulled until Monday morning.

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