Texas Education Panel Approves Bible Stories as Required Reading
A Texas education panel has approved plans to make Bible stories mandatory for all five million public school students in the state.
The required readings, which will not take effect until 2030, include Bible passages about Adam and Eve and excerpts from the book of Exodus, where God speaks to Moses through a burning bush.
Critics argue that the new reading requirements infringe on religious freedoms and blur the separation of church and state.
The Republican-controlled State Board of Education approved the measure in a 9-5 vote, with one Republican joining Democrats in opposition.
"We are bringing the Bible back into schools this week for the first time in 60 years," Brandon Hall, a Republican member of the board of education, said this week.
Supporters contend that schoolchildren should learn about Judeo-Christian traditions, which they argue were essential to the nation's founding.
The new required reading list also includes English literature classics such as Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
However, it is the mandatory religious texts that have drawn opposition from education and civil liberties groups.
"The reading list centers Christianity above all other religious faiths and traditions," Felicia Martin, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, a left-wing activist group, said ahead of the vote.
"[It has] a very Western-centric view of the world that omits the contributions and the histories of black, brown, indigenous people, of other religious faiths and traditions that are critical to the overall understanding of our history."
Friday's approval is the latest example of conservative efforts to increase the presence of Christian beliefs in the Texas education system.
Last year, Texas became the largest U.S. state to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments—a set of biblical laws some Christians believe God mandated for humans.
In April, a federal appeals court upheld the law mandating the display after a legal challenge.
