A bill to require Alabama public schools and colleges to post the Ten Commandments was the topic of a public hearing in the Legislature today.

Opponents denounced the bill as an effort to promote state-sanctioned religion, while supporters said it would recognize the historical importance of the commandments in American law and education.

The bill is the latest development in a controversy that has surfaced off and on in Alabama for more than two decades, going back to Roy Moore’s removal from the Alabama Supreme Court over his refusal to follow a federal court order to remove a monument he had installed in the state court building.

Senate Bill 166, by Sen. Keith Kelley, R-Anniston, says all local school boards must display the Ten Commandments in every school no later than Jan. 1, 2026.

The displays must be in an entry way or other common area, such as the school library, and must be at least 11 inches by 14 inches.

The bill would make the same requirement for public colleges and universities.

The bill says schools and colleges would not be required to spend public funds on the displays.

“It’s not promoting any particular religion,” Kelley told the Senate Education Policy Committee at today’s hearing. “As we all know, the Ten Commandments are found in numerous religious doctrines.

“All it is doing is promoting those Ten Commandments as a foundation of western cultural law and the founding of our country from a historical perspective.”

The bill sites several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including the case Kennedy v. Bremerton in 2022, as building the argument for constitutional displays of the Ten Commandments.

The bill includes a version the Ten Commandments identical to the text on a monument upheld in a Supreme Court ruling in a 2005 case, Van Orden vs. Perry.

The bill also includes a context statement on the historical role of the Ten Commandments in American education. The statement would be posted with the Ten Commandments displays.

Rabbi Steven Silberman of Mobile spoke in opposition to the bill. He said it would wrongly involve government in matters of faith and could cause harm.

“Placement of displays in our schools is intrusion to the minds and the hearts of our students,” Silberman said. “That’s big government in every sense of the word.”

Silberman said state endorsement of a religious viewpoint could have negative consequences those who practice other faiths.

“Faith and religious matters belong to each and every one of us and are best served by private reflection or personal worship of a chosen faith and the expression of conscience,” Silberman said.

“Please take a stand for conscience. And allow our people to broaden and enrich their lives themselves without government interference.”

Bishop Jim Lowe of Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, spoke in favor of the bill.

Lowe is part of a group of pastors in the Gatekeepers Association, which says its goal is “To Extend the Influence of God’s Kingdom into the Governmental Realm.”

Lowe said the Ten Commandments have been a moral compass to promote justice and harmony in America.

“However, as these values have been increasingly removed from our public spaces, including our schools, we have seen a trouble rise in societal issues, like crime, disrespect and a lack of personal responsibility,” Lowe said.

“Let’s be clear. Displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools is not about promoting a specific religion, but about reinforcing the fundamental universal values that were a part of our nation’s greatness. The knowledge of them will benefit all students.”

Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl spoke in favor of the bill.

“This is not about forcing religion on anyone but recognizing the historical value and the moral values of the Ten Commandments and their impact on our legal system, our state and our country,” Wahl said.

“There’s a reason that the Ten Commandments are displayed at the front of the Supreme Court building. It is because they are fundamental building blocks of the legal system and our laws.”

Rev. Eric Clark, minister of community engagement for the Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham, urged the committee to reject the bill.

“When we try to legislate religious practice, we distort the very heart of the gospel,” Clark said. “I know many of our state legislators hold their faith dear. But taking this legislative path is a dangerous road. It can corrupt both the church’s spiritual integrity and the government’s impartiality.

“True Christian witness has never been about power-mongering, but rather the profound redemptive love embodied by the cross. A love that gently draws people in and does not force itself on others.”

Rev. Lynn Hopkins of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Montgomery, opposed the bill.

“It is necessary that an act of worship be entirely voluntary,” Hopkins said. “Otherwise it is just state-sponsored idolatry. If you truly wish to destroy the system of conscientious religious tradition in Alabama, this is the way to do it.”

Alabama voters showed strong support of Ten Commandments displays in 2018 when they approved an amendment to the state constitution public schools and public bodies can display the Ten Commandments.

Seventy-two percent of those who voted supported the measure, which is Amendment 942 to the Alabama Constitution.

Louisiana became the first state to mandate Ten Commandments displays in public schools last June, but a federal judge blocked the law in November. The case is now before the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

After today’s hearing, the Education Policy committee did not vote on the bill.

The chairman, Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, said he expects a vote to come later in the legislative session.