Louisiana continues to irritate opponents of a new regulation that requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms.
The state unveiled new posters featuring the Ten Commandments on Aug. 5 as the legal battle over the issue proceeds.
H.B. 71 was passed and enacted in June. The policy requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed in elementary, secondary and postsecondary classrooms in Louisiana.
The posters displayed at a news conference were not a mandated design but instead were presented as examples for meeting the state’s requirements.
One display featured a photo of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and quoted Ginsburg praising the world’s “four great documents” — the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. Photos of the documents are also featured on the poster.
The other example poster was titled “The House of Representatives and the Lawgivers.” The display included Moses, the Ten Commandments and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who represents the state in Congress.
“All of these posters illustrate that there are constitutional ways to apply this law,” said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, per CNN.
Nine Louisiana families and a group of civil rights organizations have challenged the policy, arguing that the mandated display of religious texts violates the United States Constitution. They filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana in late June stating no other state has this type of requirement and that the state law violated the separation of church and state.
“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every Louisiana public-school classroom–rendering them unavoidable – unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture,” states the complaint. “It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments — or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that H.B. 71 requires schools to display — do not belong in their own school community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences.”
In July, the group asked that a preliminary injunction be issued in order to stop the state from enforcing the law.
Governor Jeff Landry advised parents who did not approve of the Ten Commandments to tell their child “not to look at it.”
“The Ten Commandments is not symbolic of any one particular religion,” he said on Aug. 5. “Many religions share and recognize the Ten Commandments as a whole. So really and truly, I don’t see what the big fuss is about.”
Murrill intends to file a brief defending H.B. 71.
According to her office:As the Supreme Court has recognized, the Ten Commandments have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system. Our Ten Commandments brief argues that a lawsuit filed by the ACLU is foreclosed on procedural grounds by binding Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court precedent. Our brief also argues that the ACLU’s lawsuit must be dismissed on the merits because they cannot carry their burden under Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court precedent to show that every H.B. 71 display would be unconstitutional.
