The Ohio Senate Education Committee held a second hearing on Tuesday for SB 34, a bill that opens the door for public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms and erect monuments to them on public school grounds.
Despite bill sponsor Ohio Sen. Terry Johnson (R-McDermott) previously testifying that the bill had “nothing to do with religion,” the only two witnesses to offer proponent testimony – those in support of the bill – were representatives from two anti-LGBTQ+ faith-based organizations.
SB 34, the “Historical Educational Displays Act” would mandate that, beginning July 2026, all Ohio school boards must select at least one of the following “historical educational documents” to display in every classroom:
- The Ten Commandments
- The Mayflower Compact
- The Declaration of Independence
- The Northwest Ordinance
- The mottoes of the United States and Ohio
- The Magna Carta
- The Bill of Rights
- The United States Constitution
- The Articles of Confederation
Additionally, the bill allows schools to erect “a monument or other marker inscribed with one or more of the historical educational documents” listed above.
Ten Commandments get top billing
At a hearing on February 11, Rep. Johnson said that the bill “isn’t about the Ten Commandments.”
The two witnesses on Tuesday testified solely about the Ten Commandments. First up was Tim Throckmorton, a pastor and the national director of Church Engagement and Community Impact for the Family Research Council, a Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group with a decades-long history of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and lobbying.
In his testimony, Throckmorton quoted George Washington, insisting that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to political prosperity, before outlining various points in American history where the Ten Commandments have been featured.
In his testimony, Throckmorton mentioned the importance of the Ten Commandments five times, but did not mention any of the other documents on the list.
Sen. Kent Smith (D-Euclid) asked if the Emancipation Proclamation; the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote; and Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed marriage equality, should be added to the list of documents. Throckmorton did not think so.
“I think all of these point back to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and by putting the Ten Commandments on display, [that] will draw us to the rest of our history,” Throckmorton said.
Sen. Smith then noted that the National Archives maintains a list of the 100 Milestone Documents of American history and that Ten Commandments is not on that list. Nor are the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact, two other documents on the list.
“I would think we would want to center on documents that actually detail American history,” Smith said.
Throckmorton disagreed.
“This wonderful opportunity for us to place the Ten Commandments in school rooms will point young lives and young minds to our founding,” he said. “I think the focus truly is on this bill’s willingness and intention to put the Ten Commandments forefront, as our founders intended them.”
Throckmorton also said that displaying the Ten Commandments was about more than teaching history.
“I certainly think that the state and the lives of children would be blessed by simply following [the Ten Commandments],” Throckmorton said. “Those things are instructional as well as historical. I think they should be taught in school.”
Why such ‘heartburn’?
Second to testify was Monty Lobb, executive director of the Christian Business Partnership. CBP is a division of Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), a far-right Christian lobbying organization that was designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center between 2015 and 2016.
Lobb is a former president of CCV. In 1990, he gained notoriety for helping lead the fight against the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. That effort resulted in obscenity charges against the museum director and the museum. Both defendants were acquitted on all charges.
Lobb questioned why the Ten Commandments causes such “heartburn.”
“What’s so scary about the Ten Commandments?” Lobb asked. “Is it possibly because people may actually follow their tenents? Is it a bad thing if you honor your mother and father? Is it a bad thing if you don’t murder someone or lie about another?”
In his testimony, Lobb mentioned the importance of the Ten Commandments nine times, but did not mention the other nine documents on the list.
Sen. Smith pointed out that in 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stone v. Graham struck down a Kentucky law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in each public school classroom.
Chair Andrew Brenner (R-Delaware) asked if the Ten Commandments could be displayed in a way that is “kinda nonsecular.”
Lobb explained that the Ten Commandments helped guide a people “coming out of bondage,” wandering the desert and learning to self-govern.
Sen. Brenner had to repeatedly remind those testifying that the Ten Commandments was one of a list of documents
“The emphasis that I’ve gotten from the sponsor and from this proponent testimony today actually gets us to the Ten Commandments,” Sen. Ingram said. “Would that be OK if they don’t display the Ten Commandments?”
“This is a state law,” Lobb said, “I would hope people would comply with that.”
“But they don’t have to display the Ten Commandments,” Ingram interjected.
“They’ve got options,” Lobb said. “And there’s a lot of good options here.”
If SB 34 is scheduled for another hearing, it will feature opponent testimony by those who oppose the bill. 🔥
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