BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana has become the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms, the latest move by a Republican-dominated state Legislature that is pushing conservative policies under a new governor.
The bill, signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday, requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed in poster-sized, “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state universities.
Opponents of the law questioned its constitutionality and threatened to fight it in court, while supporters argued that the law was not merely religious but had historical significance: The Ten Commandments, according to the law’s text, were “a fundamental document of state and national government.”
The posters, complete with a four-paragraph “contextual explanation” explaining how the Ten Commandments “have been a vital part of American public education for nearly three centuries,” must be installed in classrooms by early 2025.
According to the law, no state funds will be used to carry out this mandate; the posters will be paid for through donations.
The law also “permits” but does not require the display of other items in K-12 public schools, including the Mayflower Compact, signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and often referred to as America’s “first constitution,” the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government for the Northwest Territory (now the Midwest) and created the path for admitting new states into the Union.
On Wednesday, shortly after the governor signed the bill into law at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette, civil rights groups and organizations that want to keep religion out of government promised to file lawsuits challenging the bill.
The law would prevent students from receiving an equal education and prevent children of different faiths from feeling safe at school, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans 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 some version of the Ten Commandments, the specific texts they follow may vary depending on religious denomination or tradition. The government should not take sides in this theological debate,” the group said.
The controversial law in the Bible Belt state comes as Louisiana has entered a new era of conservative dominance under Governor Landry, who replaced two-term Democrat John Bel Edwards in January. Republicans hold a supermajority in the state Legislature and every elected office in the state is held by Republicans, paving the way for lawmakers to push conservative policies.
Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states. TexasBills have been passed in the states of Michigan, Oklahoma and Utah, but no state except Louisiana has been successful in enacting such legislation due to the threat of court challenges over the constitutionality of such measures.
Legal battles over displaying 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 Church and State Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” The Court found that the law served no secular purpose, but rather a clearly religious one.
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Associated Press writer Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina contributed.
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The article has been corrected to clarify that the governor’s deadline for action had not passed. The governor signed the bill on Wednesday.
