This should be an easy case. After all, the Supreme Court ruled that posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional in 1980. Because children are required by law to attend school, they will be subject to the government’s promotion of certain passages from certain Bibles.
State Rep. Dodie Horton (R), who introduced the bill, acknowledged as much during House debate. “I’m not concerned about atheists or Muslims,” she said. “What I’m concerned about is kids seeing and understanding what God’s law is.”
Smells of religious establishment to me. But Louisiana’s law is vile. The first four of the Ten Commandments dictate who and how we should worship, yet they pretend it has nothing to do with religion at all. No, it’s just one of those “certain historical documents.” Like the Mayflower Compact. After all, James Madison once said something about the Ten Commandments… plus, Louisiana kids learned them, so it’s part of history, too.
for historic Thus, for the education of Louisiana students, every classroom is legally required to display a specific version of the Ten Commandments along with a four-paragraph “background” titled, “The History of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education.”
Oh, we could even put up the Mayflower Compact if we wanted to. Whatever.
Federal judges may see through the “The Ten Commandments are an American historical document” ploy, but if the case makes it to the Supreme Court, it’s not hard to imagine conservative justices gratefully accepting this false logic in their ongoing efforts to turn a secular nation into a conservative, Christian one.
In the meantime, Louisiana teachers should be aware that the law does not prohibit them from doing so. other Papers on the wall The surrounding area The Ten Commandments.
After all, Measure 676 is intended to educate Louisiana students and help them understand U.S. history in context, right?
I suggest some colonial (actual) documents, such as the Maryland Act of Toleration, which protected the “free worship” of various Christian denominations; the Providence Compact, in which the signers explicitly promised to follow the majority vote “in civil matters only”; and the pioneering Virginia Act of Religious Freedom. Why not also include the Bill of Rights? Students can then Charmed By the First Amendment to the Constitution.
If teachers feel that the spirit of the law leans toward giving students rules to live by—after all, Houghton said, “it’s very important that kids learn what God says is right and what God says is wrong”—there are plenty of other ethical codes to read alongside the Ten Commandments: how about the Analects of Confucius, or the Ten Commandments of Taoism, or, to save wall space, the three Delphic maxims inscribed on the temple of Apollo?
Rep. Candace Newell (D) brought up the 42 Commandments of Ma’at (from the Egyptian Book of the Dead), the precursors to the Ten Commandments, as well as the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu, both of which forbade murder, theft, and lying about one’s neighbors about 1,000 years before the Exodus. I think that’s great historical context.
But for elementary school kids, all this wordiness might be a bit much — it’s bad enough having to learn about adultery or wonder what a “male slave” and a “female slave” are (hint: slaves).
Perhaps incorporating the wisdom of more recent fictional characters like Yoda (“Do it or don’t do it. There’s no trying.”) or Dory (“Just keep swimming.”) would make for a kid-friendly wall of discipline.
Even better, the children themselves can decide on 10 good rules for how people should behave. What a thought-provoking exhibit it is.
I know. Despite the dishonest wording of the law, its proponents might not approve of placing the Ten Commandments in this context: They say it shouldn’t be posted in public schools at all, or that a third-grade class could come up with a better list. They might be offended.
To them, I would offer the same answer that Louisiana Republican Rep. Lauren Ventrella gave when asked by CNN’s Boris Sanchez, “What would you say to the parents of students and teachers who do not share your religious views?”
“do not look”
