This week’s joint Theocrats of the Week are Tarrant County (Tx.) Commissioner Matt Krause and County Judge Tim O’Hare for proudly ushering a massive Ten Commandments monument onto the grounds of the county courthouse.
The display is a textbook violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and a blatant declaration that these two believe the government exists to privilege Christianity above all other beliefs. The stand-alone monument, donated by the American History & Heritage Foundation, serves no secular purpose. It exists to promote Christianity — full stop — and to announce, by adopting a Protestant version of the biblical edicts, that Tarrant County’s government favors Protestants over other citizens.
Commissioner Krause’s fingerprints are all over this unconstitutional display. Krause personally added the Ten Commandments monument to the Commissioners Court agenda — the very first item he introduced after taking office — and pushed it through on a 3–1 party-line vote, over objections grounded in state/church separation. His role is especially troubling given that he is a lawyer with the Christian nationalist legal group First Liberty Institute, which has openly promoted the monument and offered to defend the county for free if challenged in court. In other words, Krause is trying to manufacture a constitutional crisis and has ensured his ideological allies are ready to exploit it.
Both Krause and O’Hare championed the monument and attended the recent unveiling ceremony. O’Hare even celebrated the monument’s permanence, stating that it would “stand the test of time and be there for many, many years to come.” That is precisely the problem. A permanent religious monument on government property sends a permanent message of exclusion to Texas nonbelievers and others who do not adhere to Abrahamic religions.
As the Freedom From Religion Foundation points out, 26 percent of Texans are atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” and an additional 6 percent subscribe to non-Christian faiths. A full 22 percent of Texans are Catholic, subscribing to a different version of the Ten Commandments and therefore also marginalized by the divisive action.
Other speakers at the monument unveiling ceremony included Kelly Shackelford of First Liberty Institute (Krause’s boss!) and Tim Barton of WallBuilders, an organization dedicated to rewriting American history to fit Christian nationalist mythology. Texas state Rep. Nate Schatzline delivered an invocation explicitly claiming the county for the Christian god, declaring: “Tarrant County is the Lord’s.”
Krause has attempted to defend the display by pointing to the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas Capitol grounds, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005. That argument is either profoundly ignorant or intentionally misleading — or both. The Capitol monument survived only because it was deemed part of a larger museum-like collection of displays reflecting multiple aspects of Texas. The Tarrant County monument stands alone, stripped of context and placed at the seat of county justice. Under Supreme Court precedent, it more closely resembles the Ten Commandments display outside a Kentucky courthouse that was ruled unconstitutional.
What makes this action especially offensive is the setting. A courthouse is meant to embody fairness, neutrality and equal justice under the law. Instead, Krause and O’Hare have turned public property into a Christian billboard. As the Faith & Justice Coalition of Tarrant County correctly noted, no one seeking justice should be made to feel like an outsider because of their belief — or nonbelief.
This monument of biblical edicts is not about history, morality or law. It is about Christian officials using government authority to elevate their religion and marginalize everyone else. For their zealous participation in a blatant government advancement of religion, and for treating the Constitution as an obstacle rather than an obligation, Matt Krause and Tim O’Hare are more than worthy of the dubious distinction of being this week’s tied Theocrats of the Week.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.