When Louisiana gets national attention, letters come in from all over the country, as they did last week when Louisiana became the first state in the nation to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. The law prompted numerous comments from states near and far.
For our print edition, we try to get people in the state to write stories, but we also occasionally print letters from tourists and people with ties to Louisiana, who often write to praise the hospitality they received when they visited. But in this case, it’s easy to imagine that some of the letters that came from as far away as Washington state were not complimentary about the state or its laws.
Mitchell Levin of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wrote: “What does it mean to post a commandment that includes ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ in a state known for Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras and a spirit of good fun?”
“The state that currently has the third-lowest education standards has decided to reverse this trend by putting the Ten Commandments in every classroom,” said Ron Abbey of Vancouver, Washington, referring to the state’s high rate of gun violence.
Katherine Edmiston of El Paso, Texas, bluntly writes, “Louisiana, as always, is making God look bad. The worst thing that can be said about Louisiana is not that it is not progressing, but that it is actively regressing. It is stubborn to be proud of one’s hypocrisy and self-righteousness.”
it hurts.
Obviously, we want to put the voices of Louisianans before those of outsiders, and since we’ve published some of your letters on the Ten Commandments issue, we thought we’d also like to hear from people around the country.
In the past, when we’ve received a lot of interest on a topic, we’ve created an online collection so that you can see all the letters we’ve received in one place. This is one of the topics for which we are currently building a collection of letters; you can find it online in our Opinions section in the coming days.
Meanwhile, transportation is the theme for June’s Town Square. We’ll choose the best letter in response to the question: What change would you most like to see to improve transportation in Louisiana? There are only a few more days to submit letters for consideration. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to write on this topic; we’ll still publish whatever topic you write about. We just thought it might be fun to pose the question on a topic you care about and see what the most pressing issues are on your minds.
A total of 57 letters arrived in our inbox this week, of which 29 were accepted for publication. The Ten Commandments controversy was the most topical, with 13 letters received, five of which were from out of state. Most of the letters questioned the basis of the law and whether it was necessary. No other topic received more than two letters. We received two letters each on the topics of the insurance crisis, retroactive laws, abortion, and the Trump trial.
