Texas mom backs Ten Commandments in classrooms as legal battle reaches Supreme Court
As roughly two dozen Texas families fight to keep the Ten Commandments off public school walls, one Austin-area mom is making no apologies for wanting them in her kindergartner’s classroom. Brittany McFarland, a Christian mother whose 5-year-old daughter attends public school in Texas, told Fox News Digital she was “pleasantly surprised” by the new classroom displays and said the fierce backlash over them reflects a much bigger battle over faith, values and religious liberty in America’s public schools. “I feel like our country, we’ve been kind of forced to erase religion and discussion of religion in schools in general,” McFarland said. “Almost to the point where the topic is taboo, and our children are afraid and uncomfortable to mention their faith or talk anything about it.” McFarland said she and her husband had weighed whether public school was still the right choice for their daughter but said learning about the Ten Commandments law gave her a “sense of hope” about the direction of public education. TEXAS DEM JAMES TALARICO RIPS ‘UN-CHRISTIAN’ COURT DECISION ON WHAT’S ALLOWED IN CLASSROOMS “It gave me a renewed sense of hope in our school systems,” she said. The fight is straightforward. Texas requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and roughly two dozen families want the Supreme Court to block the law. The families, represented by groups including the ACLU, argue the state is crossing a constitutional line by putting a religious text in public school classrooms. They say decisions about a child’s religious upbringing should be left to parents and faith communities, not the government, and warn the displays could make students from other religious or nonreligious backgrounds feel excluded or pressured. TED CRUZ, CONSERVATIVES RESPOND AFTER TALARICO CRITICIZES BIBLE-RELATED EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS AS ‘PROPAGANDA’ Texas has defended the law, and a federal appeals court upheld it, reasoning that students are not required to recite the Ten Commandments, believe them or affirm their religious origins. Now the families are asking the Supreme Court to step in. The justices have not yet agreed to hear the case. If they do, the dispute could become a major test of how the First Amendment applies to religious expression in public schools. McFarland rejects the characterization that simply displaying the Ten Commandments amounts to imposing Christianity on students. “I look at the Ten Commandments as a reminder to do the right thing,” she told Fox News Digital. “They’re good standards for children to be exposed to.” McFarland pointed to commandments against stealing and the instruction to honor one’s father and mother as examples of principles she believes have value for children. “These are things that we should be talking about in our homes and in our classrooms,” she said. McFarland also stressed that, based on what she has seen in her daughter’s classroom and others, the Ten Commandments are not being presented as something students must recite or affirm. “It’s not like you’re walking to the classroom, and you’re seeing a five-by-six poster with it in huge font, right, front and center. That’s not what’s happening,” she said. JUDGE ORDERS WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT TO LOOSEN LIMITS ON OFF-CAMPUS BIBLE CLUB FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS “I don’t see this posting historically significant religious text as imposing religion at all. It’s not like the children are having to recite it. It’s not like they’re standing up and giving a Pledge of Allegiance to it. It’s nothing of that sort.” McFarland said her school district recently informed parents that teachers are instructed to tell students who ask about the poster that it is displayed because of Texas law. According to the message McFarland read to Fox News Digital, teachers would contact parents if students asked specific questions about its contents rather than providing religious instruction themselves. TRUMP DOJ EXPANDS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROTECTIONS AFTER MAJOR SUPREME COURT RULINGS “To me, that’s not imposing religion upon anyone,” McFarland said. “That’s giving them the opportunity to go home and talk about it. It’s opening up conversation that can occur within the home and the walls of your home.” Opponents, however, said the fact that students are not required to recite the text does not resolve their concerns. The ACLU has described the displays as government-imposed religion and argues they could lead to religious coercion, bullying or stigmatization. Some parents involved in the challenge said the mandate could make children who follow other faiths or no faith at all feel that the state favors one set of beliefs over their own. An Austin interfaith couple involved in the case has also argued that parents, rather than politicians, should decide how their children receive religious education. McFarland said she actually agrees with that principle, but disputes that a classroom display constitutes religious instruction. “I would actually tend to agree with the family that politicians shouldn’t have a role in how teachers are specifically teaching religion to our children or trying to influence them on religion,” McFarland said. “However, I see this very differently.” “To me, having a poster up is not teaching your child that religion,” she added. McFarland compared the distinction to a student seeing a human anatomy poster hanging in a health classroom, arguing that the presence of the material does not mean the child is being forced to receive instruction about everything depicted on it. She also pushed back on concerns that young children could feel pressured to adopt the religious beliefs contained in the Ten Commandments. “Five-year-olds can’t read, for the most part,” McFarland said, adding that she does not believe her daughter is entering the classroom, reading the poster and feeling pressure to embrace a particular faith. “Religion should not be taught from the teachers or enforced by the teachers, but this isn’t that,” she said. McFarland said she believes the controversy has become about something larger than the physical display itself. “I don’t think that this fight is really a poster in the classroom,” she said. “I think it’s about religious liberties.” At the same time,
Luxury travel, shopping, six-figure income: Battleground Dems ripped for ‘phony’ working-class narrative
Several battleground Democrats running in competitive House races have leaned on working-class, blue-collar biographies to connect with voters’ economic anxieties, but financial records and other materials reviewed by Fox News Digital complicate the images they have presented on the campaign trail. In New Jersey, for example, Democratic Party candidate Rebecca Bennett has pitched herself as a parent with firsthand understanding of the “rising costs and economic uncertainty” facing American families, but financial records show she collected a combined salary of nearly $250,000 in 2024 and holds an extensive investment portfolio with assets potentially worth nearly $1.8 million and no reportable liabilities. In New Mexico, Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., has said he “never had the luxury of financial wealth,” argued voters are drawn to candidates who do not “come from wealth,” and described his mother as working long hours in Mexico’s “maquiladora industry” to make ends meet. But records reviewed by Fox News Digital show his mother held corporate finance roles at GE, including as a finance manager and comptroller in Mexico and later as a senior finance analyst in Indiana, while social media screenshots shared with Fox News Digital show repeated European travel, luxury shopping and other upscale family photos. DEM IN KEY SWING RACE MISSED NEARLY HALF HER STATE HOUSE VOTES WHILE TAKING TAXPAYER SALARY: ‘NO SHOW’ Meanwhile, in Washington State, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., has built part of her blue-collar image around her time working in an auto shop and her Reed College history, saying she worked three jobs and paid for the private liberal arts school “by the credit hour” after her parents stopped paying tuition. But financial disclosures reviewed by Fox News Digital did not list reportable student-loan debt, while critics familiar with her time at Reed College have questioned whether jobs Gluesenkamp Perez cited, including as a nanny, campus barista and at an “iPhone case factory,” could have plausibly covered the school’s cost. “Voters can see through the phony double-talk easier than politicians ever realize. It’s far better to be who you are and offer a compelling vision to make voters’ lives better than contort your own biography and background into something it’s not,” Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News Digital. “Under normal circumstances, financial success and upward mobility would be attributes to lean into as selling points on the campaign trail. But with socialism ascendant and the demonization of wealth not far behind, these are far from normal times.” DEMOCRATS CAUGHT ON CAMERA COACHING CANDIDATE ON HOW TO BE ‘AUTHENTIC’ IN 2026 MESSAGING Bennett, who is running in New Jersey’s competitive 7th Congressional District, disclosed dozens of investments, retirement accounts and other assets in an amended candidate financial disclosure filed with the House on May 15 and reviewed by Fox News Digital. Based on the value ranges listed in the disclosure, her reported assets could be worth as much as roughly $1.8 million. The filing listed no reportable liabilities. Among the holdings were three valued between $50,001 and $100,000 apiece and 17 more valued between $15,001 and $50,000. Because the disclosure reports assets in broad value ranges rather than exact amounts, Bennett’s reported holdings total roughly $447,000 at the low end and nearly $1.8 million at the high end. Using the midpoint of each disclosed range puts their estimated value at roughly $1.12 million. The disclosure also showed that Bennett received nearly $200,000 in salary from Noom in 2024 and nearly $46,000 from Oshi Health that year, for more than $242,000 combined. The financial picture contrasts with the economic message Bennett has emphasized on the campaign trail, where she has repeatedly invoked her own family’s finances and experience as a mother of two. In a June 18 campaign post titled “My 2010 Honda Accord,” Bennett said she and her husband still drove the 16-year-old car because “it’s what we can afford,” arguing Washington needs more “regular people” who understand families’ financial pressures firsthand. In the post, Bennett specifically pointed to childcare, writing, “I know what it’s like to worry about childcare costs,” while also citing rising grocery bills and difficult financial decisions because there is not “an unlimited amount of money sitting in the bank account.” Months earlier, she similarly said she was, “like so many of you,” navigating the “astronomical” costs of food, education, childcare and healthcare. Those comments also come as FEC records show Bennett’s campaign has paid $21,250 since June 2025 to cover her childcare expenses. Federal election rules permit campaign funds to cover a candidate’s childcare expenses when they are incurred as a direct result of campaign activity. “After serving our country for 15 years as a Navy helicopter pilot, Rebecca swapped her MH-60 Seahawk for the 2010 Honda Accord she uses to drop off her two young children at day care and public school. Rebecca knows firsthand how much childcare costs, and it’s critical that we have people in Congress that understand the challenges New Jersey families are facing,” campaign spokesperson Carly Jones told Fox News Digital. “While Tom Kean Jr. plays the stock market in Congress, Rebecca is going to fight to lower costs and end Washington corruption.” Meanwhile, Vasquez has also been explicit in casting his background in working-class and blue-collar terms. In his first House floor speech in March 2023, the New Mexico Democrat said, “I’ve never had the luxury of financial wealth,” and during his 2022 campaign argued that voters were drawn to a candidate who “doesn’t come from wealth” or money. DSA CO-CHAIR STRUGGLES TO EXPLAIN MILLIONAIRE TAX POLICY Vasquez has also repeatedly pointed to his mother’s work in Mexico’s “maquiladora industry” as part of his family’s working-class story. In an October 2025 La Opinión op-ed, he wrote that his mother, Hortencia Banuelos, “worked long hours in the maquiladora industry working to make ends meet,” describing her story as one of “sacrifice, resilience, and hope.” In a 2023 interview, Vasquez similarly said his parents worked in the maquiladora industry, including assembling aerospace parts and building sensors for refrigerators and washing machines
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