BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana has become the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move by a Republican Party-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor.
The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law Wednesday would require a poster-size display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easy-to-read font” in all public classrooms, from preschools to state-funded universities.
Opponents questioned the constitutionality of the law and vowed to challenge it in court. Supporters said the measure is not exclusively religious, but also has historical significance. In the language of the law, the Ten Commandments are “fundamental documents of our state and national government.”
The posters, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for nearly three centuries,” are scheduled to go up in classrooms in early 2025.
By law, no state resources will be used to implement the mandate. The posters would be paid for by donations.
The law also “permits,” but does not require, other items to be displayed in K-12 public schools, including: The Mayflower Compact, which was signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and is often referred to as America’s ‘First Constitution’. the Declaration of Independence; and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory—in today’s Midwest—and created a path for the admission of new states into the Union.
Not long after the governor signed the bill into law Wednesday at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette, civil rights groups and organizations that want to keep religion out of government vowed to file a lawsuit to challenge it.
The law prevents students from receiving an equal education and will make children of different beliefs not feel safe at school, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation said in a joint statement Wednesday. . afternoon.
“Even among those who believe in a particular version of the Ten Commandments, the specific text they adhere to may vary by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not take sides in this theological debate,” the groups said.
The controversial law, in a state anchored in the Bible Belt, comes during a new era of conservative leadership in Louisiana under Landry, who replaced two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January. The Republican Party has a supermajority in the legislature, and Republicans hold every elected position statewide, paving the way for lawmakers to push a conservative agenda.
Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms have also been proposed in other states Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However, with the threat of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state except Louisiana has been able to pass the bills into law.
Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The Supreme Court ruled that the law had no secular purpose, but rather served a clearly religious purpose.
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Associated Press reporter Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.
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The story has been corrected to clarify that the time for governor action has not expired. The governor signed the bill into law on Wednesday.