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Louisiana Students Don't Need 10 Commandments Lurking Behind Them in Classrooms#10Commandments #churchandstate #FirstAmendment #religiousfreedom #politics #uspolitics #Louisiana #JeffLandry #TenCommandments pic.twitter.com/medz4jq1h6
— Chris Walker (@thatchriswalker) June 23, 2024
Louisiana has become the first state in the country to mandate the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom.
This is a clear infringement on First Amendment religious freedom rights. Now, I consider myself a Christian, but I don't believe that my faith or anybody else's for that matter should be endorsed by government in this way. By the way, the Bible feels this way, too (Matthew 6:5-7, Luke 20:20-26).
The state's governor, Republican Jeff Landry, justified the new law by stating the Commandments were a part of this country's history. That may be, to some extent, but so is Voodoo or Vodou in his home state. Somehow, I'm guessing he's not advocating for any literature from those faiths be required reading in every classroom.
And that justification from Landry doesn't make any sense to begin with. How does the historical relevance of a religious text matter in a science or math classroom? This law goes all the way up to colleges and universities, too. Why do we need the Ten Commandments in a class that focuses on molecular biology? Even in a history class, the presence of the Commandments lurking over the shoulders of students isn't exactly educational.
This law is nothing more than an attempt to get the Supreme Court to upend decades of precedent that clearly states the separation of church and state extends to public schools. The scary thing is, with this current, conservative version of the High Court, Landry and his cohorts may just succeed.
Featured image credits: Gage Skidmore/Flickr; Chris Walker
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