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BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana has become the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in all public school classrooms, in a bill signed into law Wednesday by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.
The Republican-drafted bill would require poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state universities. The bill has not yet received Governor Landry’s final approval, but time has expired for him to decide whether to sign or veto the bill.
Opponents of the law have questioned its constitutionality and warned of possible lawsuits. Supporters say the measure has historical significance as well as religious aims. The law’s text calls the Ten Commandments “a foundational document of state and national government.”
The exhibits, paired with a four-paragraph “contextualization” explaining how the Ten Commandments “have been a vital part of American public education for nearly three centuries,” must be installed in classrooms by early 2025.
The cost of the posters would be covered by donations; no state funds would be used to fulfill this requirement, according to the bill’s language.
The law also “permits” but does not require that the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinances be displayed in K-12 public schools.
Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah, but no state except Louisiana has been successful in passing them due to fears of legal challenges over the constitutionality of such measures.
Legal battles over displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the Church and State Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” The Court found that the law served no secular purpose, but rather a clearly religious one.
The controversial law in the Bible Belt state comes as the state enters a new era of conservative leadership under Governor Landry, who took office in January to replace two-term Democrat John Bel Edwards.
Republicans also hold a two-thirds supermajority in the state Legislature, with Republicans holding every statewide elected office, paving the way for lawmakers to push through a conservative agenda during the legislative session that ended earlier this month.
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