Texas Lieutenant Governor Forms Religious Liberty Committee To Help Americans ‘Fully Understand’ First Amendment

The lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, is creating a state senate select committee to study religious liberty and propose potential legislation, claiming many Texans “do not fully understand their God-given religious liberty rights.”Mr. Patrick says the committee will focus on protecting First Amendment rights of Texans as it relates to religion.“I am appointing the Senate Select Committee on Religious Liberty to find ways to educate Texans on their religious liberty rights and to make sure Texans do not have those rights infringed upon,” Mr. Patrick said in a statement.Mr. Patrick appointed seven members of the committee — six Republicans and a single Democrat. The chairman is State Senator Phil King, who sponsored a bill that requires the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The new law faces a legal challenge.The state’s attorney general is currently suing to force all school districts to display the commandments after a federal judge blocked the implementation of the law in eleven Texas school districts.Mr. Patrick, a Republican, has made religious liberty a cornerstone of his platform as he runs for a fourth term as lieutenant governor.“Texans believe in real religious freedom: the freedom for every person to practice their faith, or no faith at all, without government interference,” the Texas Democratic Party said in an emailed statement to the Sun. “While Dan Patrick focuses on creating political committees under the banner of ‘religious liberty,’ Texans are facing rising costs in the grocery store and the gas station. Our state is diverse, and our government should respect and represent all faiths, not elevate one over another.”Mr. Patrick also serves as the chairman of the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission that President Trump established through an executive order last May.A coalition of liberal and religious groups filed a lawsuit against the commission this month claiming it threatens, rather than encourages religious freedom. The suit claims that all sixteen commission members are Christian except for one Orthodox Jewish rabbi. The suit claims the commission has only promoted a “Judeo-Christian” worldview.Mr. Patrick removed conservative commentator Carrie Prejean Boller from the federal commission last month following her confrontational performance during an antisemitism hearing. Ms. Boller, wearing a Palestinian flag pin, adopted a hostile posture toward a number of Jewish Americans called to testify. She also defended commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, arguing they are critics of Zionism rather than antisemites. “No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue,” Mr. Patrick wrote in an X post announcing her removal.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Forms Religious Liberty Committee To Help Americans ‘Fully Understand’ First Amendment

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