Critics have warned that the law is unconstitutional and amounts to religious coercion on students, and have vowed to challenge it in court.
“The First Amendment promises us all the ability to decide for ourselves, without government pressure, what religious beliefs, if any, we will hold and practice,” the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and other groups said in a joint statement Wednesday. “Politicians do not have the right to impose their preferred religious doctrines on students and families in our public schools.”
Landry said he welcomed the fight.
“I’m coming home to sign a bill that puts the Ten Commandments in public classrooms,” he said at a Republican fundraiser in Nashville on Saturday, The Tennessean reported. “And I can’t wait to get sued.”
The law directs schools to display the Ten Commandments, the religious and ethical precepts handed down in the Bible to the prophet Moses, in “a poster or framed document measuring at least 11 inches tall and 14 inches wide” in each classroom by Jan. 1. The commandments must be “centered” on the display and “printed in a large, easily legible font.”
The law requires that the precepts be given context, and describes them as “an important part of American public education” from the late 17th century to the late 20th century. Schools must use donated posters or use donations to purchase displays, rather than public funds.
The Louisiana House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bill in April, and the state Senate followed suit in May, both votes along party lines. in a Republican-controlled Congress.
Similar proposals to post the Ten Commandments in schools have been introduced in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina but have not become law. In Utah, lawmakers weakened an effort to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms, instead adding religious instructions to a list of documents that can be discussed in the classroom.
Republican-led state lawmakers have proposed other efforts in recent years to blur the line between church and state, with some characterizing the drive as an attempt to restore religious freedom.
Public education has become a common battleground: Inspired by a law passed in Texas in 2023, more than a dozen states have introduced bills this year to provide chaplains in public schools, and The Washington Post reported this month that the majority of state school vouchers — billions of dollars of taxpayer money — go to religious schools.
After the Louisiana Legislature voted to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms, the Center for Inquiry, a nonprofit that advocates for a secular society, wrote Landry a letter urging him to veto the bill, saying it would be an “ignominious honor” to be the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms.
In a statement, the center said the bill was “an exclusionary, coercive measure that would make all religious minority (or no religious) students feel like outsiders in their own schools, effectively inviting lawsuits at taxpayer expense.”
Republican state Rep. Michael Bayham, one of the Louisiana bill’s authors, argued Wednesday that the new law isn’t just about religion, nor are the Ten Commandments.
“It’s our fundamental law. Our sense of right and wrong is based on the Ten Commandments,” he told The Washington Post, adding that Moses was a historical figure, not just a religious figure.
“The Ten Commandments speak just as deeply about civilization and right and wrong,” Bayham said. “They don’t say you have to have a certain faith or have a certain belief.”
