Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has a suggestion for parents who don’t believe the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public school classrooms throughout the state.
“Tell your child not to look at them,” he told reporters Monday.
The Republican governor defended the controversial legislation during a news conference announcing how Louisiana intends to fend off a lawsuit that argues that it is unconstitutional to hang the Ten Commandments in state-funded school and college classrooms.
Landry first signed the GOP-backed legislation in June, making Louisiana the first state in the nation to require schools to exhibit posters of the religious text, which was revealed to Moses in the Bible and remains revered by followers of the Christian faith.
But the move prompted a coalition of parents — Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious — to sue the state days later in federal court. They argue that the legislation “substantially interferes with and burdens” their First Amendment right to raise their children with whatever religious doctrine they want.
Landry said the backlash against the law is unwarranted. House Bill 71 passed overwhelmingly and included bipartisan support from some Democrats, he added.
Given that Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the state Legislature, which has allowed Landry to push forward a conservative, tough-on-crime agenda, the governor upheld the Ten Commandments law as an example of how “the majority gets to rule.”
“I don’t see what the whole big fuss is about,” he said Monday.
The law requires all public K-12 schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments by January.
Louisiana public school students are returning to classrooms for the new school year over the coming days but, as of Monday, Attorney General Liz Murrill told reporters that she was unaware of any schools that have started hanging posters of the Ten Commandments.
Murill held up an example of a poster that can be displayed, saying it was “not very big.” She added that no public funds will be required to be spent on printing the posters and they can be supplied through private donations.
As the families’ lawsuit plays out, Louisiana also agreed last month not to promote or create rules surrounding the law until at least Nov. 15, as the case and various motions are decided in federal court.
Murrill said that the state on Monday planned to file its motion to seek the suit’s dismissal, with officials calling the families’ complaint “premature.” She added that the state will argue how there are “numerous ways” the law can be applied constitutionally, and said having a display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms allows for “powerful teaching moments.”
That state’s motion to dismiss was filed later Monday in federal court.
One of the arguments involves a claim that parents whose children attend charter schools in Orleans Parish School lacked standing to sue Orleans Parish School Board, because it claimed charter schools are independent from the board.
During the news conference earlier Monday, Murrill offered examples of posters that could be created for classroom displays showing the Ten Commandments while also putting the words into context. One poster riffed off the song “Ten Duel Commandments” from the musical “Hamilton,” while another poster compared Moses and Martin Luther King Jr.
The U.S. Supreme Court last weighed in on the issue of the Ten Commandments in public schools in 1980, when the justices ruled 5-4 to strike down Kentucky’s law.
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