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    • Louisiana’s 10 Commandments law is overturned. Here is a simple solution
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    Louisiana’s 10 Commandments law is overturned. Here is a simple solution

    Umito Posted on

    Louisiana officials have vowed to challenge the ruling and clearly want the conservative Supreme Court to once again overturn established law.

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    Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry had a remarkably frivolous and flippant response earlier this year to parents suing to end his state’s mandate that all public schools — from kindergarten through college — display a Protestant Christian version of the Ten Commandments.

    “Tell your child not to look at them.” Landry said in August.

    U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles gave that idea the criticism it deserved Tuesday. when he issued a preliminary injunctionstopping religious posters to be placed in schools. The Baton Rouge-based legal scholar called the law “coercive and inconsistent with the history of the First Amendment and public education” because the law requires parents to send their children to school in the state.

    Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill pledged to “immediately appeal” calling it “far from over.”

    And of course, that was always the goal here. This is not about strengthening education in Louisiana. It is rampant Christian nationalism looking for judges who will overturn American rights.

    Landry, Murrill and their friends who are trying to force religion on children in a way that blatantly violates the U.S. Constitution are so eager to get the the ultraconservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals then to the American Supreme Court, controlled by the far right.

    The question of religion and government is a settled question of law. The Republicans don’t care.

    Here’s a good thing to teach in public schools around the world: The First Amendment is only 45 wordsand it contains a guarantee of five rights: freedom of and of religion, freedom of speech, free press, the right to assemble and petition your government. Religion comes first on this list of rights.

    It is established law. The United States Supreme Court in 1980, a Kentucky law was overturned demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

    Still, as we saw two years ago when the Supreme Court struck down five decades of well-established abortion rights laws, nothing can be considered certain or settled today.

    Notice: American voters just gave Trump a get out of jail free card. Whether we like it or not.

    Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and Statetold me it wouldn’t surprise her if Governor Landry worked to take this issue to the Supreme Court. His group, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, helped the parents sue Louisiana.

    “The Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue, invalidating a materially indistinguishable statue in the 1980 decision,” Laser said. “This precedent controls this case, and we do not expect the Supreme Court to overturn it.”

    Effort is underway to rewrite Louisiana history

    The groups had no choice but to defend constitutional rights, Annie Laurie Gaylor told me. She is co-founder of Religious Freedom Foundation.

    “Of course, that is the intent of the legislature, but with a law so contrary to the Constitution and the rights of students, a legal challenge is the only path forward and we hope to prevail,” Gaylor said. “It is difficult to imagine a more blatant disregard for the prohibition on the establishment of religion.”

    This precedent is even older. In 1947, the Supreme Court ruled that freedom of religion – known as the establishment clause – applies to state and local laws.

    Notice: Louisiana law does not address the Ten Commandments. This is Christian nationalist bait for the United States Supreme Court.

    Landry and the Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature challenged the law when they advocated the measure. And they have attempted to rewrite history to claim that the Ten Commandments have long been an important part of American public education, a weak ruse to suggest that their publication had nothing to do with religion.

    A legal historian has actually disputed this assertion during testimony in October. DeGravelles agreed with that on Tuesday, ruling that families who took legal action have ‘strong chance of success’ in the case.

    And the judge said that even if Louisiana proved that the Ten Commandments were an essential part of public school education, it would still violate the Establishment Clause.

    There is a simple way for religion to be the guiding force in education: private schools

    There’s a simple solution here, if Louisiana Republicans are so eager to promote religion in education: encourage parents who agree with that to send their children to private school, where that sort of thing is legal. .

    This is already a very popular option in the state. A report published last year According to Louisiana’s Legislative Auditor, 15 percent of the state’s more than 775,000 students attend private schools, grades K-12, “making Louisiana the second highest-ranked state in the United States, behind Hawaii,” for private school attendance.

    But that would make it something parents would choose for their children, not something Landry and his Republican legislature would impose on them by law. That’s not the goal here.

    The real motivation is to impose one version of a religion on everyone while using the machinery of government to mow down the protections provided by law to stop exactly that.

    Louisiana should study American history. An honest reading of this topic makes it clear that what the state is attempting here violates everything the men who wrote the First Amendment were trying to protect.

    Follow USA TODAY election columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

    Umito
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