LAFAYETTE, Louisiana (LifeSiteNews) — Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is calling on educational institutions in the Bayou State to display the Ten Commandments now that a federal court has cleared the way.
In 2024, Landry signed HB 71, which states that “each public school governing authority shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school under its jurisdiction,” with a “minimum requirement” that they “be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches” with “large, easily readable font.” The displays must also include a context statement detailing the set of fundamental religious principles’ historical prominence in American education dating back to 1688.
He anticipated from the start that the measure would be legally challenged, quipping “I can’t wait to be sued” over it. As expected, the Louisiana chapter of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) promptly announced that, along with the national ACLU and other groups opposed to any intermingling of government and religion, they were filing a lawsuit against the law, claiming it “will result in unconstitutional religious coercion of students.”
The law was blocked that year, but last month the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12-6 to reverse the lower ruling and allow HB 71 to take effect, ruling that fears of religious coercion were premature without examples of just how teachers would reference the Commandments in class.
On February 26, Landry sent a letter to superintendents across the state urging them to comply with the law, NOLA reports.
“The Fifth Circuit’s decision removes any obstacles to the implementation of Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law, and schools should now proceed with placing the posters in classrooms,” he wrote, adding that “schools should implement the law without fear of litigation,” as the Attorney General Liz Murrill “stands ready to defend schools” challenged for complying.
Murrill’s office issued its own guidance to schools reiterating the same, along with sample Commandment posters.
Supporters say that such religious displays are integral to emphasizing the role of faith in America’s formation and prosperity dating back to the nation’s founding and do not constitute an impermissible “establishment of religion.”
The phrase “separation of church and state,” frequently invoked in opposition to religious content on public grounds, comes not from the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution but from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802, reassuring the group of his belief that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions.”
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State,” Jefferson said in the correspondence.
When taken literally, “‘separation of church and state” is accurate shorthand for one of the practical effects of the First Amendment: recognizing that churches and the state are two distinct entities, and neither may control the affairs of the other. Today, however, left-wing activists claim that it means religious ideas and values cannot in any way inform, influence, or be recognized by government and that any expression of faith on government time, on government land, or with government resources is illegal, no matter how benign or voluntary. That interpretation is without basis in the words or actions of America’s Founding Fathers, who viewed religion as vital to America’s success and worthy of being recognized in public education.