{"id":23037,"date":"2024-06-25T11:12:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T15:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=23037"},"modified":"2024-06-25T11:12:33","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T15:12:33","slug":"civil-liberties-groups-file-lawsuit-opposing-louisiana-law-requiring-ten-commandments-in-every-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/06\/civil-liberties-groups-file-lawsuit-opposing-louisiana-law-requiring-ten-commandments-in-every-classroom","title":{"rendered":"Civil Liberties Groups File Lawsuit Opposing Louisiana Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Every Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public classroom, the latest move from a Republican-dominated legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor. The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry recently signed into law required a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.<\/p>\n

Landry said, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses, who got the commandments from God.” The posters, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public\u00a0education\u00a0for almost three centuries,” must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025. Under the law, state funds will not be used to implement the mandate. The posters would be paid for through donations.<\/p>\n

The law also “authorizes” but doesn’t require the display of other items 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 \u2014 in the present day Midwest \u2014 and created a pathway for admitting new states to the Union. Not long 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 a lawsuit challenging it.<\/p>\n