Ten Commandments school law challenged at Supreme Court

A group of Texas parents asked the US Supreme Court on Monday to block a state law requiring the Bible's Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups joined the parents, described as being of diverse faiths and having children in Texas public schools, in asking the court to hear the case.

“The US Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” Chloe Kempf, an attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement.

Kempf said the separation of church and state meant “families and faith communities -- not politicians -- get to decide what role religion plays in children's lives.”

In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in a similar case that the display of the Ten Commandments in schools in Kentucky was unconstitutional.

In April, a conservative-dominated appeals court ruled in favour of the Texas law, Senate Bill 10, which requires the scripture to be posted in every classroom. The judges ruled that the law did not violate the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, the part of the First Amendment that bars the government from establishing a national religion or showing preference to one religion over another.

Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, and the justices have sided with religious rights claims in several recent high-profile cases.