Louisiana will be sued over new law forcing Ten Commandments display in classrooms
When signing the new law, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he "can't wait to be sued"
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Yesterday, with the signature of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, Louisiana became the first state in the country to require public schools to post a copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Or at least the first state since Kentucky’s identical law was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court 44 years ago in Stone v. Graham.
In recent years, other states have tried to do the same thing and failed (Texas) or tried to make it optional and still failed (Arizona), but none have been dumb enough to force school districts to waste their time on something so useless.
While the final version of the bill was meant to help it pass legal muster, a lawsuit is already on the way. And additional problems are already emerging long before the law goes into effect on January 1, 2025.
In case you need a recap, HB 71, sponsored by Republican State Rep. Dodie Horton, initially said that the “Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.”
Her bill sailed through the State House on a 82-19 vote. The version that made it through the State Senate (more on that in a second) passed 30-8 last month. While some Democrats voted for the bill, the no votes all came from their side.
It’s no wonder those Democrats were against it. The bill even specified the text that each Ten Commandments poster would have to display:
The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.
(More astute readers may have noticed that there are more than 10 commandments on that list. If that’s you, congratulations on having a better education than Dodie Horton.)
Even beyond that, there are different translations of the Bible used by different kinds of Christians, and the Ten Commandments may change depending on which version you use. (For example, some say not to worship graven images; others say not to worship false idols. Those are not synonymous.) So to say that only one version of the Ten Commandments can go up in schools isn’t just an admission that the government doesn’t care about non-Christians. It’s an admission that the government doesn’t care about most kinds of Christians either.
It is also genuinely bizarre that the same people who don’t want high schoolers learning about sex, systemic racism, or LGBTQ people seem to have very specific things they want kindergartners to know about adultery and their neighbor’s maidservants. If this material first appeared in a book written by a gay author, the same Republicans would call it “grooming.”
The list also wouldn’t solve any real problems. No potential school shooter has ever plotted out a path of destruction only to reconsider after realizing the Ten Commandments say “Thou shalt NOT kill.” If students need a sign to remind them not to murder others, they have bigger issues. It would be great if they could see a mental health professional, but Louisiana has also enacted another law to get Christian chaplains in schools rather than hiring actual experts.
And, of course, several of the Commandments are flat-out useless since they forbid believing in false gods, making “graven images,” taking God’s name in vain, and not keeping the Sabbath day holy.
What about the other commandments? “Thou shalt not kill” ought to be pretty straightforward, but Louisiana is currently trying to expand its options for the death penalty in order to allow for more state-sanctioned murders. Horton herself has said rapists should be executed, adding “I’d love to hang them from the highest tree." While no one is sympathizing with rapists, her blood-lust is apparent. And the Republicans in elected office clearly don’t care about the “Thou shalt not bear false witness” one since they reflexively defend Donald Trump’s every lie.
The list simply has no purpose. What exactly is the educational benefit of telling children they can’t have other gods before the One True Christian God™? Or that they can’t make false idols? Or they can’t take God’s name in vain? Or that they have to rest on Sunday? Or that they can’t have sex with people they’re not married to? Or they can’t want what their neighbors have? Do kindergartners really need to be told not to commit adultery?
And which teachers were clamoring for the government to give them this distraction?Which teachers are lobbying the legislature for the ability to tell children they’ll burn in Hell for all of eternity if they don’t follow a set of mostly arbitrary rules?
The Louisiana bill also said schools had to pay for the posters themselves (through their own funds or through donated funds), but that donated displays were acceptable. Making matters more confusing, though, nowhere in the bill did it say what the penalty would be for schools that refuse to participate in this Christian charade.
You get the picture? There was no good reason to pass the bill, much less sign it into law. From the very first line, “I AM the LORD thy God,” this was an endorsement of a very specific brand of Christianity, and the government has no business telling students which religious rules they need to follow.
But the bill that Landry signed yesterday still has problems. That’s the case even though, when the State Senate got ahold of this bill, they made some important changes that could have blunted the problems in the original version.
For example, the bill justifies putting the Ten Commandments in schools by citing the 2005 Supreme Court case of Van Order v. Perry:
But that ruling said Ten Commandments displays on government property were only permissible in context, like as part of a broader set of displays dealing with laws throughout history.
The new posters will also have to come with a disclaimer—one that offers the supposed historical context, citing the Decalogue’s use in education long before our country was as religiously diverse as it is today.
That fine print wouldn’t negate the fact that this is still a religious imposition upon schools.
The bill also allows schools to put up copies of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance alongside the Ten Commandments. That would suggest the Commandments are one of many ancient documents that inspired our legal system… but schools wouldn’t be required to put those other documents up.
If the bill says the Christian list is mandatory but the secular texts are optional, it’s an illegal promotion of religion. It doesn’t help that those three other documents all affirm the importance of faith in one way or another. At the same time, let’s not forget that a lot of conservative Christians might not like the idea of their biblical list being placed alongside other documents even if they praise religion.
Finally, the new law explicitly says no public funds can be used for the displays. Only donations of posters (or donations of cash to purchase posters) will be accepted.
The bottom line is that schools will still be forced to put up the Ten Commandments posters, engaging in an illegal promotion of Christianity. Horton’s bill is so egregiously illegal that a virtually identical version failed to pass in freaking Oklahoma earlier this year. As one Democrat said at the time, the Christian Nationalist bill was “unconstitutional, exclusionary, and dangerous. By endorsing a state-sanctioned religion, they undermine the foundational principle of religious freedom upon which the United States was built upon.”
That’s what Landry did when he signed the bill on Wednesday, trashing all non-Christians along the way:
Before signing the bill, Landry called it “one of (his) favorites.”
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you gotta start from the original law given which was Moses. … He got his commandments from God,” Landry said.
People who don’t obey the Ten Commandments don’t respect the rule of law, says the governor from a party whose leader is a convicted felon. This is the same week when a Trump-aligned megachurch pastor resigned after it was discovered that he was once a child sex predator. Given all the crimes committed by the Christian Nationalist side, maybe we should give non-religion a try.
None of that fazed Landry. When he spoke about the bill on Saturday, he dared critics to come after him.
During his keynote speech on Saturday at a Republican fundraiser in Tennessee, Landry touted the bill as a conservative victory in the ongoing culture wars and boasted that he "can't wait to be sued."
He didn’t have to wait very long. Just hours after the bill’s signing, the ACLU, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation announced that they would sue to stop this law from going into effect:
“We are preparing a lawsuit to challenge H.B. 71. The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional. The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.
“Louisiana’s communities and public schools are religiously diverse, yet H.B. 71 would require school officials to promote specific religious beliefs to which people of many faiths, and those of no faith, do not subscribe. Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate, and it certainly should not be coercing students to submit day in and day out to unavoidable promotions of religious doctrine.
“All students should feel safe and welcome in our public schools. H.B. 71 would undermine this critical goal and prevent schools from providing an equal education to all students, regardless of faith. We will not allow Louisiana lawmakers to undermine these religious-freedom rights.”
Gov. Landry must have known this lawsuit was coming. So why did he sign the bill? Because it’s a way to signal to far-right Republicans and Christian Nationalists that he’s in their camp. And because this lawsuit would wind up in federal courts and possibly appealed all the way up to a Supreme Court that loves shit like this. To everyone who instinctively says this bill is unconstitutional, just remember that Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito and their allies have the power to decide whether or not that’s true, and they’ll twist the historical record all they want to arrive at their preferred conclusion.
Plus, in order to get that far, the state of Louisiana would have to defend the law… which still means taxpayer dollars will be used to defend an indefensible advertisement for Christianity.
While that eventual lawsuit works its way into the system, it may be interesting to note that Horton made a key mistake in her proposed legislation.
Nowhere in her bill did it say the Ten Commandments posters had to be written in English... And the Senate’s version never fixed that. (For that matter, the bill also doesn’t say the posters have to be displayed facing outward.)
When that omission happened in Oklahoma, activist Chaz Stevens wasted no time mocking up posters he intended to send to schools if that bill was passed, just as he did in Louisiana and Texas when they passed laws requiring “In God We Trust” in public schools. (Dodie Horton was behind that latter bill, too.)
Chaz shared with me some of the posters he now plans to donate to Louisiana schools if this bill is signed into law. (Some of the personal marks may have to disappear but these are among his many drafts.)
He’s still raising money for his posters here in case you’re interested.
Louisiana, by the way, has been ranked the worst state in the nation to live. Its education system is also one of the worst. Prioritizing the placement of the Ten Commandments in classrooms instead of anything teachers actually want is a perfect example of why kids there are struggling.
(Portions of this article were posted earlier because Christian Nationalists keep trying to pull this shit.)
It's amazing how poorly these Christian legislators understand their own religion. Remember the story: Moses gets the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20. He comes down Mt. Sinai, sees the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, gets furious, and smashes the tablets. Eventually, Moses goes back up the mountain to get another set. God makes clear that it's the same laws as before: "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke" (Exodus 34:1).
But read them--they're not even close to the original set! Go on--read Exodus 34. It's not long.
This ignorant law is listing the 10 Commandments from Exodus 20, but it was the second set that made it into the Ark of the Covenant. These politicians want to be taken seriously, but they can't even get their own mythology straight!
Any third year law student would tell you that this law violates the Establishment Clause. It’s going down.