Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has responded with defiance to left-wing threats to sue the state over a newly-enacted law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry responded with defiance to left-wing threats to sue the state over a newly-enacted law requiring theTen Commandmentsbe displayed in public school classrooms, saying he welcomes the opportunity to defend the law in court.
On Wednesday, Landry signedHB 71, which says that by the beginning of next year, “each public school governing authority shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school under its jurisdiction,” with a “minimum requirement” that they “be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches” with “large, easily readable font.”
In addition to the commandments themselves, the displays are to include a context statement detailing the set of fundamental religious principles’ historical prominence in American education dating back to 1688.
Landry signed the law asone of many billscomprising his “Dream Big” education plan, addressing multiple aspects of school policy to “prioritiz[e] learning over government bureaucracy, retur[n] our curriculum back to the basics, and allo[w] our teachers to teach,” according to the governor’s office.
Last weekend, prior to signing HB 71, hequippedat a Republican fundraiser that “I can’t wait to be sued” over it. As expected, the Louisiana chapter of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)announcedWednesday that, along with the national ACLU and other groups opposed to any intermingling of government and religion, they are filing a lawsuit against the law, claiming it “will result in unconstitutional religious coercion of students.”
“The 10 Commandments are pretty simple (don’t kill, steal, cheat on your wife), but they also are important to our country’s foundations,”respondedLouisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrell. “Moses, who you may recall brought the 10 Commandments down from Mount Sinai, appears eight times in carvings that ring the United States Supreme Court Great Hall ceiling. I look forward to defending the law.”
The ACLU of Louisiana claims that the new law “violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment. More than 40 years ago, inStone v. Graham, the Supreme Court overturned a similar state statute, holding that the First Amendment bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.”
However, HB 71 cites much more recent Supreme Court precedent: 2005’sVan Orden v. Perry, which ruled the Ten Commandments could be displayed on public property because “simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause”; and 2019’sAmerican Legion v. American Humanist Association, which upheld the display of a cross at a public veterans memorial park. Neither case directly concerned schools, but turned on many of the same legal concepts.
Supporters argue that such religious displays are integral to emphasizing the role of faith in America’s formation and fortunes dating back to the nation’s founding, and do not constitute an impermissible “establishment of religion.”
The phrase “separation of church and state,” frequently invoked in opposition to religious content on public grounds, comes not from the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution but from aletterThomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802, reassuring the group of his belief that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions.”
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State,” Jefferson said in the correspondence.
When taken literally, “‘separation of church and state” is accurate shorthand for one of the practical effects of theFirst Amendment: recognizing that the church and the state are two distinct entities, and neither may control the affairs of the other. Today, however, left-wing activists claim that it means religious ideas and values cannot in any way inform, influence, or be recognized by government, and that any expression of faith on government time, on government land, or with government resources is illegal, no matter how benign or voluntary. That interpretation is without basis in the words or actions of America’s Founding Fathers, whoviewed religion as vital to America’s success, and worthy of being recognized in public education.
“The very same Congress (specifically, the First Congress) that approved the language of the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment] also provided for the appointment of chaplains in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives,” American Center for Law & Justice attorney Geoffrey Surtees haswritten.
“In fact, on the very same day that it approved the Establishment Clause, the First Congress also passed the Northwest Ordinance, providing for a territorial government for lands northwest of the Ohio River, which declared: ‘Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged,’” he added.
In response to the new law, California’s far-left Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsompostedon X, “Louisiana has the worst crime rate in the nation – but this is their priority.”
“Unlike Gavin’s liberal hug-a-thug policies, we held a crime special session in just my first two months in office,” Landryreplied. “And, maybe Gavin is unaware that the Lord says thou shall not kill, steal, or rape! By the way, the only reason California is not the worst is they quit reporting.”
