A proposed Alabama law would force every school to display the Ten Commandments
It's blatantly illegal, not to mention useless, but Republicans are obsessed with this idea
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Alabama is the latest state attempting to get the Ten Commandments in public schools, and this time around, Republicans feel confident they can get it done.
But their own history shows how controversial this can be.
Nearly 25 years ago, then-Chief Justice Roy Moore installed a giant Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse in the dead of night. When he was told to remove it, he said no, eventually defying other courts’ orders and becoming a fake Christian Martyr in the process. Eventually the eight other justices on the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the monument had to go—and not long after that, Moore was removed from his seat altogether. (In 2012, he was re-elected to Chief Justice. All of that happened before he was outed as a child sex predator.)
In 2018, voters in Alabama passed a constitutional amendment that would “allow display of the Ten Commandments in schools and on other public property,” while banning the use of public funds to defend those displays in court.
That measure was effectively toothless. It theoretically allowed schools to put up Ten Commandments displays… while forcing them to pay for eventual litigation if someone sued over it. And since federal law prohibits the endorsement of religion, much less a particular faith, on public property, this “victory” was hollow at best. As far as I can tell, the ballot measure didn’t lead to Ten Commandments displays erected outside courthouses or public schools.
On Wednesday, 22 Republicans in the Alabama legislature led by State Rep. Mark Gidley (a pastor at Faith Worship Center, a church in Glencoe) filed HB 178 in order to force schools to display the Decalogue, imitating a law passed in Louisiana before a federal judge struck it down as unconstitutional. (That decision is currently being appealed.)
The bill would create a new law requiring school boards to “display the Ten Commandments in each school under its jurisdiction” by January 1, 2026. The displays could go up at the schools’ entrances or other common areas (“such as the school library”). It even lays out the specific wording that must appear on each display:
The bill also says a disclaimer must be included with each display… and it’s a *very* long disclaimer:
The History of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education
The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries. Around the year 1688, The New England Primer became the first published American textbook and was the equivalent of a first grade reader. The New England Primer was used in public schools throughout the United States for more than 150 years to teach Americans to read and contained more than 40 questions about the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments were also included in public school textbooks published by educator William McGuffey, a noted university president and professor. A version of his famous McGuffey Readers was written in the early 1800s and became one of the most popular textbooks in the history of American education, selling more than 100 million copies. Copies of the McGuffey Readers are still available today.
The Ten Commandments also appeared in textbooks published by Noah Webster which were widely used in American public schools along with America's first comprehensive dictionary that Webster also published. His textbook, The American Spelling Book, contained the Ten Commandments and sold more than 100 million copies for use by public school children all across the nation and was still available for use in American public schools in the year 1975.
That’s a carbon copy of what Louisiana lawmakers wanted to include, too, and it’s complete bullshit.
The argument here is that the Commandments were used in the New England Primer, McGuffey Readers, and in textbooks by Noah Webster. But the New England Primer was used almost exclusively in religious schools long before the rise of public education. And while some McGuffey Readers include a story about the Ten Commandments, others don’t. And there are all kinds of reasons all of these texts went out of style over the past century.
When lawyers on the side of church/state separation argued against the law in Louisiana, they said “there is no evidence of a longstanding, let alone unbroken, historical acceptance and practice of widespread, permanent displays of the Ten Commandments in public schools.”
The reason the law cites some old textbooks used before America became more religiously diverse, before we adopted public education, and before we even knew how evolution worked, is because that’s the only “history” they can cite in their defense. And even then, those textbooks didn’t call for posting the Ten Commandments in the classrooms. The Ten Commandments weren’t even significant texts in those books.
They weren’t “prominent.” They weren’t in public schools. They weren’t on the walls. That’s why these disclaimers prove absolutely nothing.
The bill also says school boards have the option of putting up other displays, like the “Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance.” This is at least attempting to get the Commandments in line with the law, saying they’re just one of many historical and legal documents that shaped the country. But even then, this bill makes these other documents optional. Schools “may” display them. They don’t have to. That word choice alone negates the entire section. If you’re forced to put up the Christian text, while merely having the option of putting up secular documents that still make references to God (because they didn’t know any better at the time), then you’ve got a bill promoting Christianity.
Finally, the bill says no school has to pay for any of this. They can always use “donated funds” or “donated displays” that meet the requirements. But that, too, creates a problem since school officials would be in the position of having to approve or reject various donated posters, which could lead to legal problems.
Notably, however, the bill says nothing about who would pay for the lawsuits once this law goes into effect.
Alabama Republicans are forcing school districts to do something illegal, without lifting a damn finger to help them once they’re sued as a result. And they will be sued because the identical Louisiana law has already been deemed unconstitutional.
The thinking seems to be that if lawmakers give it a calendar year, the Supreme Court will have fixed the problem by allowing public institutions to promote Christianity, but that’s a long shot even with this current Court.
Like Republicans across the country, though, the governor made clear that she wasn’t going to let the law get in the way of imposing her religious will on the people:
“The United States of America was founded as one nation under God, and it is important for our students to understand that through key documents like the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, to name a few,” said [Gov. Kay] Ivey spokeswoman Gina Maiola.
“The governor has long been a supporter of displaying the Ten Commandments in public places, and doing so along with other founding articles is the right way to do it.”
All of that’s a lie, too. We weren’t founded as a nation under God, which is why that phrase wasn’t in the Pledge of Allegiance until the 1950s. But you can’t expect honesty from conservative Christians who believe Jesus provides cover to lie to advance their political agenda. Even that last line about how Ivey wants to display the Commandments “along with other founding articles” is a lie since displaying those other documents are optional in the bill!
Kudos to the state’s Democratic Party for not mincing words about what this bill is really about:
The Alabama Democratic Party called the focus on the Ten Commandments as an example of Republican efforts to turn the U.S. into a “christofascist ethnostate” while ignoring the Constitution, the will of the founders, and the rule of law.”
“This country was founded upon the freedom of religion, and regardless of the desires of those within the Supreme Court, Congress, Executive branch and officers in state government who wish to force their beliefs and ways of life upon others, that foundation remains solid,” said Sheena Gamble, spokesperson with the Alabama Democratic Party.
Will Alabama’s bill pass? Sure, why not. Democrats are nearly extinct in the legislature and Republicans are more interested in creating a theocracy than building up public education. But if they do pass it, there will be lawsuits. And this bill is written so poorly that even right-wing judges would be hard-pressed to let it slide (though I’m sure many of them will be eager to find a way).
By the way, Gidley bragged about his new bill during a speech to the Eagle Forum of Alabama, and insisted he wasn’t trying to “put religion back in the public sphere” but rather “return what was there originally.”
In the speech, he seriously suggested that the Ten Commandments in schools would prevent mass shootings… before quickly backing away from that insane idea… before quickly embracing it once again.
Can you imagine all the school shootings we've had in the last 25 or 26 years, could you imagine if a child walked down the hallway and saw on the wall there that says “Thou shalt not kill.” Would it might have had an impact?
I'm not sure that that would, but I tell you something: Putting God back there will, because God is not… cursing us because of what we've done. He just said, “Get me out of the way and see what happens!” So we got to put him back in this sphere, okay?
Utter lunacy from the sort of person who will never do anything to prevent the spread of semi-automatic weapons.
(Portions of this article were published earlier because Republicans keep using the same templates to write their illegal bills.)
"Gidley bragged about his new bill during a speech to the Eagle Forum of Alabama, and insisted he wasn’t trying to “put religion back in the public sphere” but rather “return what was there originally.”"
Just like slavery was there originally!
These effin' people and their history!
Going back to 1688 overlooks the fact that the early colonies operated as companies under warrant from the British crown, which also made them part of England's established religion, the Church of England.
The United States itself wasn't officially established until the Treaty of Paris in 1783. While religious disestablishment was slowly happening, unofficially, as church attendance was dropping, it didn't become the law of the land until the First Amendment was ratified in 1791. Even after the First Amendment was adopted, there was still a long battle to enforce the Establishment Clause.
It wasn't until 1962 that SCOTUS ruled school-sponsored prayer was unconstitutional. And let's be honest, these christian nationalist types have been angling to get prayer and other religious nonsense back into public schools ever since.
One last thing: Anybody else ever notice that no other religious sects are so determined to shove their religions on the rest of us? You never see Jews or Muslims or Hindus or anyone else pushing these laws. It's always the christians..... Makes you wonder who they're trying to convince, eh?