South Dakota Republican proposes illegal Ten Commandments-in-schools bill
State Sen.-elect John Carley's proposed bill to promote Christianity in schools is guaranteed to draw a lawsuit
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South Dakota Republicans are now considering their own bill to force public schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom. And, like every other state attempting to do the same damn thing, the bill they’re proposing is blatantly illegal.
State Sen.-elect John Carley jumped the gun on this last week when he told a local news outlet about the bill he was sponsoring—before the text had even been released (and even before he’s been sworn into office).
“We need to illustrate our history and truth, some people may want to say, ‘We don’t want to talk about these topics,' but the Ten Commandments certainly were a part of the founding of our country,” Carley said.
…
“If we find kids honoring their father and mother, a lot of parents will be happy about that. If we find people are not stealing, lying or murdering, I think our Sheriff Department and law enforcement will certainly be happy,” said Carley.
He didn’t bother explaining how posting the Ten Commandments would change theft rates or murder rates, given that the laws the government passes apparently have no effect in his view. If the Ten Commandments lowered murder rates, then why would he need to pass laws to address crime? And if they don’t improve murder rates, then why is he wasting everyone’s time?
No one asked him how kids reading the Commandments would fix the problems he was elected to solve. No one pointed out that the Ten Commandments were not, in fact, “a part of the founding of our country” and that there’s a reason the Bible isn’t in the Constitution.
Beyond that, as I’ve said before, this is always a meaningless gesture. 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 goes without saying that several of the Commandments are flat-out useless when it comes to instilling morality since they forbid believing in false gods, making “graven images,” taking God’s name in vain, and not keeping the Sabbath day holy.
What’s 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 that they aren’t supposed to want what their neighbors have? Beats me.
Do kindergartners really need to be told not to commit adultery? (If that line were in a library book, you know these same Christians would try to get it banned.)
Even beyond that, public school teachers aren’t clamoring for the government to give them this distraction.
In any case, that was all before we saw the text of the bill. Senate Bill 51 was finally released on Friday and it’s as bad as we could have expected. There are several parts, each of which are worth examining closely.
Section 1 requires all public school districts to put a poster (at least 8” x 14”) of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. It says the font must be large and easy to read and the text of the Commandments must be the focus.
It doesn’t say the text must be in English or that other symbols, like a Satanic pentagram, can’t appear in the background. That opening in other states has led activist Chaz Stevens to propose alternatives like the ones below:
As for the text, Carley is very clear that the posters must include the following (“or substantially similar language”):
That’s the common list as most people, I gather, know them. But the fact is if you were making a list of moral rules, no sane person would list these ten. Too many are useless. Too many important rules are left out.
In addition to 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 putting up a particular version of the Ten Commandments isn’t just an admission that a school district doesn’t care about non-Christians. It’s an admission that the district doesn’t care about most kinds of Christians either.
Section 2 involves the Don’t-Sue-Us disclaimers that all posters must include next to them offering the supposed historical context of the Commandments, citing the Decalogue’s use in education long before our country was as religiously diverse as it is today. The disclaimers are supposed to be in smaller font compared to the Ten Commandments but still legible.
(These are nearly carbon copies of the disclaimers used in Louisiana, too.)
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 proposed Louisiana law (that does exactly what South Dakota is doing now), 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, and 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. And these disclaimers, therefore, prove absolutely nothing.
Section 3 says that schools have the option of putting other displays next to the Ten Commandments posters, like “the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and other documents foundational to the legal and governmental systems of the United States.”
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. Classrooms “may” display them. They don’t have to. That word choice alone negates the entire section. If you’re forced to put up Christian text, and merely given the option of putting up secular text, then you’ve got a law promoting Christianity.
Section 4 says schools boards “may accept” donated posters or donations of cash to purchase their own.
Notice that it doesn’t say officials would have to accept the donated displays, though. That puts administrators in the position of approving or rejecting various donated posters, which could lead to legal problems.
Section 5 changes a current law that requires all schools to teach kids about the Constitutions of the United States and South Dakota sometime between 8th grade and when they graduate high school. The bill now requires schools to teach those documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and “The Ten Commandments, presented as a historical legal document, including the influence of the Ten Commandments on the legal, ethical, and other cultural traditions of Western civilization.”
So… the bill forces kids to learn a false, David Barton-approved version of American history that puts Christianity at its forefront even when it has no business being there.
Also, the indoctrination has to start early. The bill says kids have to learn this stuff between 1st and 4th grade, then again between 5th and 8th grade, then again in high school.
Section 6 of the bill repeals a previous law that allowed districts—but didn’t require them—to put up the Ten Commandments alongside other documents as long as no one document was more prominent than another.
Why repeal this? Because the only goal of this bill is to promote Christianity. Obviously.
Ultimately, this bill is functionally the same as the once Louisiana enacted last year… and which was subsequently shot down by a federal judge. (We’re still awaiting a decision from a higher court after the state appealed the ruling.) Which is to say that this bill didn’t work in Louisiana, but South Dakota Republicans want to copy it anyway because they also don’t give a shit about the students.
Will South Dakota’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, you can bet there would be a lawsuit. 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).
For now, no action has been taken on the bill.
Carley, by the way, is the South Dakota chair for former Arkansas lawmaker Jason Rapert’s National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a group that tries pushing these kinds of bills throughout the country.
Pissing on the Constitution. Trying to mark the public schools as their exclusive territory. That's what Christian Nationalists do. Am I surpised? No. Will the legal challenges be successful? I hope so, but with the January 20 scheduled transfer from the Uniited States to the Republic of Gilead, I am concerned.
I didn't see a requirement for hanging the text of the 10C's graven image facing outward instead of facing the wall.