[guest post by Dana]

Louisiana goes there:

A bill signed into law this week makes Louisiana the only state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom in public schools and colleges — and stirs the long-running debate over the role of religion in government institutions.

Under the new law, all public K-12 classrooms and state-funded universities will be required to display a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” next year.

As expected, civil liberty groups are pushing back on the new law, saying:

. . . it would unconstitutionally breach protections against government-imposed religion.

Moreover:

The organizations believe the law violates U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in the 1980 Stone v. Graham decision. In a 5-4 ruling, the Burger court ruled against a similar law passed in Kentucky requiring classrooms to post copies of the Ten Commandments, finding that it violated the First Amendment.

“The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional,” the groups wrote in a joint statement. “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. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

Proponents of the bill say that the history of the Ten Commandments are “foundational documents of our state and national government.”

The bill also allows schools to display other historical documents, such as the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance.

“Although this is a religious document, this document is also posted in over one hundred and eighty places, including the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I would say is based on the laws that this country was founded on,” Republican state Sen. Adam Bass told KALB last month.

While other places/buildings in the U.S. post the Ten Commandments, the fact remains that students have to attend school, and are thus going to be a captive audience, so to speak. Do we trust that teachers won’t have kids reciting the commandments? That would be a further violation of civil liberties in a public school setting.

It’s also going to be problematic for the parents who are raising their children in a non-Christian faith. Won’t they see this as a gross violation of their liberties? I think they will.

This:

“Altering constitutional law is not the only motivation here; a version of Christian mysticism is also in play. There is a real belief that the Ten Commandments have spiritual power over the hearts and minds of students.

“I grew up in Kentucky and went to classes before the Ten Commandments were ordered removed, and I can testify that the displays had no impact on our lives. My classmates and I were not better people because of the faded posters on the walls.”

(I believe posting the Ten Commandments in public school rooms violates the Constitution. But if it didn’t, and lawmakers were determined to go the religious route in public schools to please their constituents, why choose the Ten Commandments? Why not choose instead the beautiful Beatitudes?)

—Dana