Louisiana and the Ten Commandments (Act №676)
Original photo uploaded by Yelpet to Wikipedia Commons
Louisiana legislators recently passed a bill mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. I’ve been seeing a lot of concerning headlines and social media posts about the problems of mandating the display of religious texts, and I found myself wondering how such legislation could be justified.
Fundamentalist legislators already know the pitfalls of advocating for explicitly Christian privileges in public spaces. Institutions like the Satanic Temple are poised to defend religious plurality in America whenever favoritism is shown to Christianity, and my suspicion is that right wing politicians are savvy enough to change tactics when necessary. So, I went and found the legislation and read it for myself.
In this post, I want to talk about what the legislation ( House Bill №71, Act №676) actually says. I’ll give my thoughts in a follow up post. Let’s acknowledge the facts at face value before we start digging into potential problems and what might be happening under the surface.
What Can Be Displayed?
On its surface, the new legislation is about more than just the Ten Commandments. There are four documents that can be displayed under Act №676:
- The Mayflower Compact: a general framework for cooperation signed by most of the men on the Mayflower in 1620.
- The Declaration of Independence: a document declaring the intent to separate from England and the reasons for doing so and signed in 1776 by the delegates of those 13 colonies that originally formed the United States of America.
- The Northwest Ordinance: an ordinance adopted in 1787, which, according National Archives, “chartered a government for the Northwest Territory, provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory.”
- The Ten Commandments: ten laws that create a framework for the covenant between God and the Israelites in the Old Testament.
Why Will These Documents Be Displayed?
In short, the argument is that all four of the documents have historical significance concerning American and Louisiana Law. This is building off a 2006 legislation ( Sentate Bill №476, Act №602), which argued that people needed to be educated about such history. Referenced in Act №676:
…the Ten Commandments and other historically significant documents for posting in court houses and other public buildings to address “ a need to educate and inform the public as to the history and background of American and Louisiana law. “
Some brief justification along these lines is given for the Mayflower Compact:
The Mayflower Compact of 1620 was America’s first written constitution and made a Covenant with Almighty God to “form a civil body politic”. This was the first purely American document of self-government and affirmed the link between civil society and God.
As well as the Northwest Ordinance:
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided a method of admitting new states to the Union from the territory as the country expanded to the Pacific. The Ordinance “extended the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty” to the territories and stated that “(r)eligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
No context is provided for the Declaration of Independence, although that one is perhaps self-explanatory.
Most of Act №676 is dedicated justifying the inclusion of the Ten Commandments, and rather than providing a brief, general context, the legislation mandates three paragraphs of context be included with any display. The text is as follows:
The History of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education
The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries. Around the year 1688, The New England Primer became the first published American textbook and was the equivalent of a first grade reader. The New England Primer was used in public schools throughout the United States for more than one hundred fifty years to teach Americans to read and contained more than forty questions about the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments were also included in public school textbooks published by educator William McGuffey, a noted university president and professor. A version of his famous McGuffey Readers was written in the early 1800s and became one of the most popular textbooks in the history of American education, selling more than one hundred million copies. Copies of the McGuffey Readers are still available today.
The Ten Commandments also appeared in textbooks published by Noah Webster in which were widely used in American public schools along with America’s first comprehensive dictionary that Webster also published. His textbook, The American Spelling Book, contained the Ten Commandments and sold more than one hundred million copies for use by public school children all across the nation and was still available for use in American public schools in the year 1975.
Other included justifications for the Ten Commandments are references to Supreme Court rulings concerning the legality of displaying the Ten Commandments in court houses and other public spaces.
- Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 688 (2005): Ten Commandments can be displayed on government property.
- American Legion v. American Humanists Association, 588 U.S. 29, 53 (2019): Ten Commandments “have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system. . .”, and their are several reasons for their display.
- Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summan, 555 U.S. 460 (2006): local governments can display privately funded monuments of the Ten Commandments.
Why Are People Singling Out the Ten Commandments?
You may have seen headlines that ignore the other three documents and only call out the Ten Commandments in this legislation. This is likely because the Ten Commandments is the only document that public schools are being required to display under Act №676. As it states:
No later than January 1, 2025, each public school governing authority shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school under its jurisdiction.
And:
No later than January 1, 2025, each public postsecondary education management board shall require each institution under its jurisdiction to display the Ten Commandments in each classroom on the institution’s campus.
Concerning the other three documents, Act №676 only says that schools may also display them along with the Ten Commandments. That is, they are not required to display them.
A public school may also display the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance, as provided in R.S. 25:1282, along with the Ten Commandments.
Where Will the Ten Commandments Be Displayed?
Act №676 states that the Ten Commandments will be displayed in “public elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools.” Basically, they will put the displays in any school buildings run by the state of Louisiana. Specifically, the displays will be in every classroom.
Who’s Paying for the Displays?
School authorities can either use documents provided by the state or use a monument funded by private donations. They have until the end of the year to locate and procure their displays, but they are explicitly not required to pay for them using school funds.
Just my opinion, but I imagine there’s no shortage of Christian institutions willing and able to donate displays. I think it would be better that way, rather than using tax payer dollars.
That’s the gist of this new Louisiana legislation, and you probably noticed that I linked to the full document on the Louisiana State Legislature government website. If you missed it, here’s the link again, along with the link to Senate Bill №476, Act №602, which was referenced in Act №676.
I’ll post again later with my thoughts and concerns about this. There’s a lot to consider, and it’s worth digging deeper; please don’t accept people merely at face value. If the last several decades, and especially the last few years, have taught us anything about Christian leadership and Christian Nationalists in powerful positions, it’s that all kinds of abuse is and has been rampant, and they’re often not what they seem. A healthy skepticism about legislation championed and supported by fundamentalist Christians is probably a good default posture.
If you’re enjoying the content on Breaking Bread Theology or find it helpful, please consider supporting this work. I would love to make this a full-time effort and continue to expand the available content, but that will only be possible with enough support from readers like yourself. I hope that together we can continue to create safe spaces for people to explore faith and theology.
Originally published at http://breakingbreadtheology.com on August 6, 2024.
