La. Classrooms Must Post Ten Commandments. Not Kidding.

According to La. HB 71 (and in keeping with the preferences of authoritarian governments and leaders), the Louisiana legislature is requiring that a state-endorsed religious document, in this case, the Ten Commandments, be posted in all K12 classrooms.

Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed the bill into law on June 19, 2024.

As NBC reports, the lawsuits are a-coming:

Civil liberties groups announced later on Wednesday (June 19, 2024) that they planned to challenge the Louisiana law in court. In a joint statement, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and the Freedom from Religion Foundation said that “the law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional.”

“The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government,” the statement added. “Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

From the bill:

No later than January 1, 2025, each public school governing authority shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school under its jurisdiction. The nature of the display shall be determined by each governing authority with a minimum requirement that the Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.

And in case one might want to stray from the King James Version, there will be none of that, as the bill specifies:

The text shall read as follows:
“The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

Of course, if you want to get really “historical”:

As for the Landry-Legislature command, there’s more: A mandatory context statement:

In an effort to head off the inevitable lawsuits that will arise from this shallow action that tramples on any true spirit of internalized, freely-selected Judeo-Christianity, the authors of the bill tacked on a number of otherwise optional historical documents (though the obvious point of the bill is to force all Louisiana K12 admin and teachers to specifically post the Ten Commandments, as noted from the “by the way” message about every other doc mentioned in the bill except the Ten Commandments):

Here’s that “by the way”:

Ignorant performance art.

In Matthew 22:36, Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest.

His response (v.37-40, NIV):

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love. That was His response. Not perfomance art.

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