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    • Louisiana’s 10 Commandments law was overturned. Here’s an easy fix
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    Louisiana’s 10 Commandments law was overturned. Here’s an easy fix

    Online Niel Posted on

    Louisiana officials have vowed to appeal the ruling and clearly want the conservative Supreme Court to overturn the established law again.

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    Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry had a remarkably frivolous and counterintuitive response earlier this year to parents who sued to stop his state’s mandate that every public school — from kindergarten to college — displays it. a Protestant Christian version of the ten commandments.

    “Tell your child not to look at them.” Landry said in August.

    U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles gave that notion the punch it deserved on Tuesday when he issued a preliminary rulingstopping religious posters to be placed in schools. The Baton Rouge lawyer called the law “coercive and inconsistent with the history of the First Amendment and public education” because parents are required by law to send their children to school in the state.

    Liz Murrill, Attorney General of Louisiana, promised to “immediately appeal” calling this “far from over”.

    And of course, that was always the point here. This is not about strengthening education in Louisiana. Its creeping Christian nationalism looking for judges to overturn American rights.

    Landry, Murrill and their cronies who are trying to force religion down children’s throats in a way that blatantly violates the US Constitution are so eager to get the ultraconservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the far-right controlled US Supreme Court.

    The question of religion and government is settled law. Republicans don’t care.

    Here’s a good thing to teach in public schools everywhere: The The First Amendment is only 45 words longand includes a guarantee of five rights – freedom from and from religion, freedom of speech, a free press, the right to assemble and petition your government. Religion is first on the list of rights.

    This is settled law. US Supreme Court in 1980, overturned a Kentucky law demanding that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms.

    However, as we saw when the Supreme Court overturned five decades of settled law when it comes to abortion rights two years ago, nothing can be considered certain or settled now.

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    Rachel Laser, President Americans United for Separation of Church and Statetold me that it would not surprise her if Governor Landry were to bring this question before the Supreme Court. Her group, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, helped the parents sue Louisiana.

    “The Supreme Court has already decided this issue, striking down a materially indistinguishable statue in the 1980 decision,” Laser said. “This precedent controls this case, and we do not expect the Supreme Court to overturn it.”

    The effort is to rewrite Louisiana history

    The groups had no choice but to defend their constitutional rights, Annie Laurie Gaylor told me. She is the co-founder Freedom From Religion Foundation.

    “Of course, that is the intent of the legislature, but with a law that violates the Constitution and students’ rights so much, a legal challenge is the only way forward, and we hope it prevails,” Gaylor said. “It is hard to think of a more egregious violation of the establishment of religion bar.”

    That precedent is even older. In 1947, the Supreme Court ruled that freedom of and from religion—known as the Establishment Clause— state and local laws apply.

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    Landry and the Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature challenged the law when they pushed the measure. And they tried to rewrite history to claim that the Ten Commandments had long been a prominent part of American public education, a lame ploy to suggest that their post wasn’t about religion.

    One legal historian has effectively disputed this claim during testimony in October. DeGravelles agreed with that Tuesday, ruling that families who sued have a “substantial likelihood of success” in the case.

    And the judge said that even if Louisiana proved the claim that the Ten Commandments are a staple of public school education, it would violate the Establishment Clause.

    There is an easy way for religion to be the guiding force in education: private schools

    There’s an easy fix here, if Louisiana Republicans are so eager to push religion into education — encourage parents who agree with it to send their kids to private school, where it’s legal.

    It is already a very popular option in the state. A report issued last year by Louisiana’s legislative auditor said 15 percent of the state’s more than 775,000 students attend private schools in kindergarten through 12th grade, “making Louisiana the second highest-ranking state in the United States, behind Hawaii ,” for private school attendance.

    But that would make it something parents chose for their children, not something Landry and his Republican legislature imposed on them by law. That’s not the goal here.

    The real motivation is to force one version of a religion on everyone, while using the machinery of government to cut away the protections provided by law to stop just that.

    Louisiana should study American history. An honest reading of this thread makes it clear that what the state is trying to do here violates everything the men who wrote the First Amendment were trying to protect.

    Follow USA TODAY election columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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