Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry The bill was signed This month, state schools, universities and colleges will be required to display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms. The posters must be at least 11 by 14 inches in size, and the commandments must be displayed in “large, easily readable font.”
State Sen. Jay Morris anticipates a legal battle. Declared The bill states that its purpose is “not solely religious,” and its provisions consider the Ten Commandments to be “a fundamental document of the religion of the state and nation.” government“It has been a permanent part of American public education for nearly three centuries.”
This logic is disingenuous. The law allows it, but I need Displays include the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. There is notable absence of mention of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the government from establishing religion.
Moreover, the proponents of this law made little effort to hide their religious motives. Governor Landry approved a law requiring transgender students to be referred to by the pronouns on their birth certificates, but Declared“God gives us signs,” he said. He viewed the bill allowing public schools to hire chaplains as “a big step to expand faith in public schools.” The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Dodie Horton, claims she’s “not worried about atheists. I’m not worried about Muslims.” AccidentallyThe Ten Commandments “are the basis of all law in the state of Louisiana,” Horton said, and he wants “our children to understand what God says is right and what God says is wrong.”
As supporters of this bill know, more than 40 years ago, the Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham Declared Kentucky’s law is nearly identical to the state’s and unconstitutional. In an unsigned majority opinion, the justices wrote that posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom is “clearly religious in nature,” lacks a “secular legislative purpose,” and serves no “constitutional educational function.” The state encouraged students to “read, meditate on, perhaps worship, and obey” the Ten Commandments and to fulfill other religious obligations, such as “worshiping God alone, avoiding idolatry, not taking His name in vain, and observing the Sabbath.”
The court found that the Ten Commandments were not integrated into school curricula where they could be appropriately used in the study of history, law, ethics, and comparative religion, and that the use of private donations to fund the deployment (which Louisiana also mandates) was “immaterial” because the mandate was made “with the auspices of Congress.”
Despite the bets made by Louisiana religious fanatics on a Supreme Court that has shifted sharply to the right, the decision in Stone v. Graham seems just as compelling in 2024 as it was in 1980.
The text of the Ten Commandments, taken from the King James Version of the Bible, is: Legislature Unlike the language of Jewish scripture and certainly unlike the precepts central to other religious faiths, the Catholic Catechism does not contain a commandment that states “you shall not make any graven images.” Thus, this bill could be interpreted as an endorsement of Protestant theology in a majority-Catholic state, evoking the foresight of James Madison. caveat“Can anyone not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity to the exclusion of all others can just as easily establish a particular sect of Christianity to the exclusion of all others?”
About 84% of Louisiana adults ChristianStill, thousands of state residents, including many Christians, may conclude that the new requirement violates their freedom of thought and religious rights. About 2% of adults are non-Christian (Jews, Muslims, Hindus), 13% are atheists, agnostics, or “don’t believe in anything in particular,” 6% do not believe in God, 33% rarely or never read the Bible, 21% believe the Bible is not the word of God, and only 43% rely on religion to determine right and wrong.
Some of these people may disagree with Governor Landry’s argument. Code of Hammurabi“If we want to respect the law, we must start with Moses, the original lawgiver.”
Despite (or perhaps because of) America’s growing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity, there is a growing movement to require the Ten Commandments text in public school classrooms. After Louisiana passed the law, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R-Texas) said: I swore The state is expected to pass a similar bill, and other Republican-leaning states could also pass similar bills.
And Donald Trump, who doesn’t strictly follow all of the Ten Commandments, posted his own take in all caps on Truth Social: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES. IN FACT, THIS MAY BE THE FIRST HUGE STEP TOWARD A RESULT IN RELIGION, WHICH IS SO DESERVEDLY NEEDED IN OUR COUNTRY.”
Have we seen the future? Will it unite us or further divide us? As Cassius told Brutus, our destiny “lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.”
Glenn C. Altshuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies Emeritus at Cornell University.
