{"id":387903,"date":"2026-07-27T17:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T17:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/387903\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T17:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T17:11:13","slug":"dan-patrick-directs-texas-senate-to-expand-religious-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/387903\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Patrick directs Texas Senate to expand religious liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick<\/a> on Monday asked state lawmakers to study ways to further infuse religion into public life as part of a new crop of interim charges<\/a> unveiled by the Texas Senate leader. <\/p>\n

One of the lieutenant governor\u2019s directives tells senators to compare state and federal laws surrounding religious liberty, with specific instructions to look at whether state laws line up with the \u201cestablishment\u201d and \u201cfree exercise\u201d clauses<\/a> of the First Amendment and determine if \u201cadditional protections are needed.\u201d Another charge instructs lawmakers to examine ways to educate Texans about their right to practice their religion \u201cin all settings, including, but not limited to: education, workplace, government, and healthcare.\u201d <\/p>\n

A third calls for a pulse check on a law passed by the Legislature in 2025 that lets public schools excuse student absences for off-campus religious instruction. All three charges are assigned to Patrick\u2019s newly formed Religious Liberty Committee, chaired by state Sen. Phil King<\/a>, R-Weatherford, that was announced in March.<\/p>\n

The latest charges arrive as Texas\u2019 Republican leaders continue to attack Muslims in the state. One of Patrick\u2019s first charges, released earlier this year<\/a>, called for \u201cpreventing Sharia law in Texas,\u201d while party members at the Texas GOP convention last month tried to expel Muslims<\/a> who arrived to participate in the event.<\/p>\n

Patrick has long been a champion of Christian conservative values and has said he does not believe there is a separation between church and state. Last year, President Donald Trump tapped<\/a> him to lead a new commission on religious liberty. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such thing as \u2018separation of church and state\u2019 in the Constitution. For too long, the anti-God left has used this phrase to suppress people of religion in our country,\u201d Patrick said in April<\/a> after the commission held its final hearing. <\/p>\n

Interim charges are lists of issues that the lieutenant governor and speaker give to their respective chamber\u2019s committees to study during the period between legislative sessions. They typically include reviews of recently passed laws and instructions to recommend laws for the upcoming session. Patrick has already released multiple<\/a> waves<\/a> of interim charges ahead of the Legislature\u2019s reconvening in January.<\/p>\n

The lieutenant governor\u2019s other charges Monday call for preventing unfair online ticket sales, studying gaming platforms that target children for inappropriate advertising, examining \u201cinefficient or inconsistent\u201d divorce and child custody proceedings, and assessing the Pecos River Basin\u2019s water situation. <\/p>\n

The Republican-controlled Legislature has already thinned the line separating church and state in recent years. A new law requires public schools to display<\/a> the Ten Commandments and another lets schools set aside time for prayer, yet few school boards did so<\/a> last school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawmakers have also required classrooms to hang donated signs that say \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d; allowed unlicensed religious chaplains to supplant mental health counselors in public schools; and approved new curriculum materials that teach the Bible and other religious texts alongside grade-school lessons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Monday asked state lawmakers to study ways to further infuse religion into public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7757,1864,2133,145,15106,1968,2915,2424,27,29,293,28,1863],"class_list":["post-387903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-christianity","tag-dan-patrick","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-phil-king","tag-religion","tag-religion-and-politics","tag-republicans","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}