Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has a suggestion for disbelieving parents The Ten Commandments must be displayed in public school classrooms across the state.
“Tell your child not to look at them,” he told reporters on Monday.
The Republican governor defended the controversial legislation during a press conference announcing how he plans to beat back a lawsuit claiming that hanging the Ten Commandments in Louisiana’s publicly funded school and college classrooms is unconstitutional.
Landry first signed the GOP-backed law in June, making Louisiana the first state to require schools to display posters of the religious text revealed to Moses in the Bible and revered by followers of the Christian faith.
But the move sparked a coalition of Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and secular parents. to sue the state days later in federal court. They argue that the legislation “substantially interferes with and burdens” their children’s right to raise their children in the religious doctrine of their choice.
Landry said the backlash against the law is unwarranted. House Bill 71 it passed overwhelmingly and included bipartisan support from some Democrats.
Given that Republicans hold majorities in both houses of the state legislature, that makes it possible. Landry, a conservative, to push a tough-on-crime agendathe governor supported the Ten Commandments as an example of “majority rule.”
“I don’t understand what all the 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 return to classrooms for the new school year in the coming days, but Attorney General Liz Murrill told reporters on Monday that she is not aware of any schools that have begun displaying Ten Commandments posters.
Holding up a sample of the displayable poster, Murill said it was “not too big”. He added that no government funds will be required for the printing of the posters and they can be provided through private donations.
While the families’ lawsuit continues, Louisiana also agreed last month not to publicize or create rules covering the law until at least Nov. 15 as the case and various motions are resolved in federal court.
Murrill said the state plans to file a motion Monday to seek dismissal of the lawsuit, which officials called the families’ appeal “premature.” He added that the state will argue there are “multiple ways” how the law could be applied constitutionally, and said displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms allows for “powerful teaching moments.”
The US Supreme Court last discussed the Ten Commandments in public schools in 1980, when it ruled 5-4 that a Kentucky law was unconstitutional.