Texas Attorney General and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Ken Paxton is defending himself against a slew of misconduct allegations — including criminal indictments — by claiming he has “generously” offered “vivid learning experiences” for the state’s new Bible curriculum.
Paxton was indicted for securities fraud in 2015 and has been accused of accepting bribes, firing whistleblowers, misusing his office to support the businesses of his donors, stealing a watch, and cheating on his wife.
“I haven’t actually done anything wrong, of course,” Paxton said in a recent press conference, “What I have done is given the appearance of wrongdoing, which gives Texas public schoolchildren real-world examples of what violating scripture looks like.”
Texas mandates that the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms and recently passed new educational standards that include study of the Bible.
“What better way to teach the Ten Commandments than having a prominent Texan appear to break all of them?” argues Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and a Paxton supporter. “Not to mention get away with it, which is an excellent way of introducing the Christian concepts of grace and forgiveness.”
Paxton said he hopes Texas schoolchildren will learn that the Old Testament lays down the law, and the New Testament “shows us how you can pretty much do anything you want if you are an evangelical Christian and a Republican.”
He also pointed to his wife’s filing for divorce on “biblical grounds.”
“This is a fantastic learning opportunity for Texas students,” Paxton argued. “They immediately will wonder what the Bible says about marriage and divorce, prompting them to do some research that will bolster traditional marriage in the state.”
“Look, I didn’t have to do any of this,” Paxton said, “I could have lived a visibly upright life, beyond accusation. But who would benefit from that? The fact is, I care about the children of Texas, and there is nothing I won’t do to contribute to their moral education.”
Paxton’s opponent in the US Senate race, James Talarico — a seminarian with no scandal in his background whom Paxton says doesn’t understand Christianity “in any form” — suffered a minor aneurysm when asked for comment.
He then recovered enough to rhetorically ask, “Why doesn’t he go ahead and murder someone, if moral instruction is what he’s doing here?”
“Oh, I’m working on that,” Paxton responded. “Especially if I lose this race.”
Holly Berkley Fletcher is an author, historian, and former intelligence analyst. She was raised in Kenya by evangelical missionary parents. She earned a PhD in American history and taught in universities for several years before being hired as an Africa analyst by the Central Intelligence Agency, where she worked for nineteen years. She writes the substack A Zebra Without Stripes, and her most recent book is The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism. She lives in the Washington, DC, area with her husband, two kids, and delinquent rescue dog.