Speakers clashed Wednesday at a public hearing over a bill that would require school systems to display the Ten Commandments in school buildings.
Four Alabama faith leaders spoke against SB166 by Sen. Keith Kelley, R-Anniston, while four individuals spoke in favor of the bill.
The bill would require all school boards in the state to display the Ten Commandments in an entry way or other common area of every school under its jurisdiction.
The legislation lays out exactly how the Ten Commandments should be worded and requires the display to be at minimum on a poster or framed document 11 by 14 inches that makes the Commandments the central focus in large, easily readable font.
Rev. Eric Clark, minister of community engagement at Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham, told lawmakers that the bill “contradicts the message and character of Jesus of Nazareth.”
“When we try to legislate religious practice, we distort the very heart of the Gospel,” Clark said.
Becky Gerritson, executive director of Eagle Forum, said the bill follows a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court precedent that allowed a high school football coach to pray after games. Eagle Forum has been quietly pushing the bill for months.
“For thousands of years, the Ten Commandments have represented a universal moral code that transcends specific religions, providing a foundational ethical framework for society,” Gerritson said.
Rev. Lynn Hopkins told the committee that by choosing any particular wording of the Ten Commandments by nature denotes promotion of a specific religion.
“What I;m concerned about, first of all, is that there is no specification in this text: are we talking about the Jewish phrasing and numbering system, or the Catholic, or the majority Protestant,” Hopkins asked.
Col. John Eidsmoe, a professor of constitutional law, argued that the text specifically doesn’t number the commandments to avoid giving preference to any religion’s version of them, and that the wording is taken from a prior Supreme Court precedent as well as being “the most well-known” version of the Commandments.
Proponent Jim Lowe drew connections between the lack of religious values in schools and “a troubling rise in societal issues like crime, disrespect and a lack of personal responsibility.”
The bill itself and several proponents made the case that the Ten Commandments heavily influenced the history and legal system of the Untied States, although not everyone present agreed with that. Rev. Julie Conrady and Eidsmoe debated whether the majority of the founding fathers were deists, which Conrady identified herself as.
Rabbi Stephen Silverman said, as a member of a minority religion in the sate, he is sensitive to others who are in the minority as well, and said publishing the Ten Commandments in schools “unfairly sidelines Alabamians who may have diverse views of religious traditions.”
The committee did not take a vote on the bill due to the public hearing, but could bring it up for a vote next week.
