Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana signed a bill this month requiring the state’s public schools, colleges and universities to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Posters must be no smaller than 11 by 14 inches, featuring the Commandments in “large, easily readable font.”
Anticipating a court challenge, State Sen. Jay Morris declared that the purpose of the bill “is not solely religious.” And the text of the legislation deems the Ten Commandments a “foundational document in our state and national government ” that was “a permanent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”
This rationale is disingenuous. The law authorizes but does not require displays of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government sponsored establishments of religion, goes conspicuously unmentioned.
The law’s sponsors, moreover, made little effort to hide their religious motives. In endorsing a law requiring that transgender students be addressed by the pronouns in their birth certificates, Gov. Landry declared , “God gives us our mark.” He deemed legislation allowing public schools to hire chaplains “a great step for expanding faith in public schools.” State Rep. Dodie Horton, sponsor of the bill, isn’t “concerned with an atheist. I’m not concerned with a Muslim.” Claiming, incorrectly , that the Ten Commandments “are the basis of all laws in Louisiana,” Horton wants “children to see what God says is right and what He says is wrong.”