A NEW law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every school classroom in the state of Louisiana, in the United States, is facing a long legal battle, after the Bill was blocked by a federal judge.
District Judge John deGravelles this week granted a request from a group of parents for an injunction blocking the Bill, which he described in his written judgment as “unconstitutional on its face and in all applications”.
The Bill had an “overtly religious” purpose, he wrote, in violation of the First Amendment, under which “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
He continued: “Each of the Plaintiffs’ minor children will be forced ‘in every practical sense,’ through Louisiana’s required attendance policy, to be a ‘captive audience’ and to participate in a religious exercise: reading and considering a specific version of the Ten Commandments, one posted in every single classroom, for the entire school year, regardless of the age of the student or subject matter of the course.”
The Bill had been signed into law by the Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, in June. It has been backed by the President-elect, Donald Trump (News, 5 July). It would have required schools that receive public funding to post a specific version of the Commandments, similar to the King James Version, by 1 January 2025.
The Attorney General of Louisiana, Liz Murrill, said in a statement that she would appeal against the judgment.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which supported the legal challenge, welcomed the ruling. Heather Weaver, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, said in a statement: “This ruling should serve as a reality check for Louisiana lawmakers who want to use public schools to convert children to their preferred brand of Christianity.
“Public schools are not Sunday schools, and today’s decision ensures that our clients’ classrooms will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed.”
The legal case was brought by a group including Christian, Jewish, and non-religious parents.
The Revd Darcy Roake, a Unitarian minister who is a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement that she was “relieved” by the judge’s order. “We expect our children to receive their secular education in public school and their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.”
The case is likely to go all the way to the Supreme Court, which last ruled in 1980 that Kentucky’s posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional.
On the same day in 1980, however, the Supreme Court also ruled that it was constitutional to display the Ten Commandments on a slab in the grounds of the state capitol, because it was a “passive” display, but not in the courthouse.
The president and chief executive of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rachel Laser, said that the ruling would ensure that families, not politicians, chose how their children engaged with religion. “It should send a strong message to Christian nationalists across the country that they cannot impose their beliefs on our nation’s public-school children. Not on our watch.”
Similar legal battles are under way in Oklahoma over a requirement, also announced this summer, that the Bible be incorporated into lesson plans for children in grades five to 12.
In a survey by the Pew Research Center this year, almost half (48 per cent) of the more than 12,000 US citizens questioned agreed that “conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to push their religious values in the government and public schools.” But, in the same survey, in answer to a different question, 50 per cent agreed that “liberals who are not religious have gone too far in trying to keep religious values out of” these institutions.