Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill on Wednesday requiring every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments.
“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 G-d,” Landry said. He also told reporters that he “can’t wait to be sued over it.”
Louisiana is the first state to pass such a law but similar bills have been proposed in Utah, Oklahoma, Texas and other states.
The Lousiana bill mandates a poster-size display in classrooms from kindergarten to university with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”
The law describes the goal of the law as not religious but that the Ten Commandments are “foundational documents of our state and national government.” Additionally, the posters will be funded through donations rather than state funds.
State Representative Michael Bayham told The Washington Post on Wednesday that the new law is related to historical law.
“Our sense of right and wrong is based on the Ten Commandments,” he said. “The Ten Commandments is as much about civilization and right and wrong; it does not say you have to be this particular faith or that particular faith.”
The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation responded to the bill in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon by saying that it “violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional.”
“Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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9 Responses
Just wondering why this isn’t a violation of separation of church and state not withstanding who pays for it
And probably the only state .
Your picture is very misleading. What Louisiana will probably post is an English version drafted in the 17th century, based on the Roman Catholic Latin version from the 4th century, based on a Christianized version of the Septuagint.
They would do better to display the 7 Noaich commandments. Unfortunately, they don’t know and don’t want to know them…
In any event, they obviously are trying to get a case before SCOTUS to overturn a 1980 decision with a more liberal court that ruled a nearly identical Kentucky law unconstitutional. While some yidden may not think these efforts are problematic (“Moses was Jewish and these commandments came from his G-d”) , wait until Christian Nationalism begins to take a darker turn
Deuteronomy or Exodus??
Gadolhadorah: Christian Nationalism has never been a problem for us , at least during the last few centuries. You would have to go back to Czarist Russia to find a Christian Nationalist who was also an anti-Semite. From the 20th century onwards, anti-Christians such as the “radical” Muslims and the left-wing atheists are the problem. Note that there is not even a “christian” branch of the WOKE movement, which in alliance with the Muslims is the movement actively advocating our genocide.
This is not good for the Jews. If they get away with this, the next wall poster will be from the New Testament.
Huju, what if it is? How would that harm us?