BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) — Louisiana public schools will likely be required to display the Ten Commandments in every public classroom as a bill mandating it nears the governor’s desk.
HB71 requires a poster sized display, 11 by 14 inches, of the Ten Commandments in all K-12 classes. Lawmakers in favor of the bill claim the commandments are historical documents that all laws are based on and should be seen in classrooms.
No other state has been able to pass this law due to fights over if it is constitutional.
“We separate church and state, and I get that I’m for the First Amendment. But the recent decision to the Supreme Court makes it crystal clear that if there are multiple reasons to have something posted in the room, it’s okay,” said state Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1980’s that the Ten Commandments were plainly religious in nature.
State Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, said there are other bills being passed banning teachers from talking about sexual topics and believes some of the commandments could start classroom discussions that would break those laws.
“We really need to be teaching our kids how to become literate, to be able to actually read the Ten Commandments that we’re talking about posting. I think that should be the focus and not this big what I would consider a divisive bill.” Duplessis said.
The posters would be paid for through donations, so no state funds will be used to implement the mandate. The bill goes back to the House for representatives to accept amendments, then it heads to the governor’s desk.
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