Louisiana’s law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments is set to be debated in court on Thursday, and Republicans in Washington are rooting for it to prevail.
“I don’t think the Ten Commandments should ever have been removed from classrooms,” Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins told NOTUS. “Growing up, it was always there, it was part of like, civics, for generations, because it’s a formulative document of our civilized law.”
A federal appeals court will hear arguments on the new law, which the state legislature passed in June. The law would require every public classroom in the state to display a poster with the Ten Commandments, but it is currently blocked from taking effect due to a challenge by a multifaith group of public school parents and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Sen. John Kennedy told NOTUS the matter would be decided in court, but he supports the idea behind the law.
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“I happen to agree with the principle, but is it constitutional? Under the federal or the state constitution? It’ll be litigated, and ultimately it’ll be resolved by either the Louisiana Supreme Court and or the United States Supreme Court,” said Kennedy.
And Rep. Julia Letlow told NOTUS she stands by Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, a defendant in the suit, and Gov. Jeff Landry, who signed the bill into law.
The law is part of a broader push for Christian influence in public schools. Texas’ lieutenant governor said last year that getting a law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments is a key priority for the legislative session. Oklahoma’s state superintendent is facing two lawsuits over his mandate last summer that schools teach the Bible.
It’s a trend that might grow under President Donald Trump’s Department of Education. Last year, Trump posted on Truth Social in support of the Ten Commandments being displayed “in public schools, in private schools, and many other places, for that matter.”
Higgins told NOTUS he has high hopes for how the Trump administration will approach religion and civic education in public schools.
“I think states will be encouraged to be bold in embracing or reembracing the core principles that made our country great, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Higgins said.
But the ACLU and other opponents have argued these laws fly in the face of the Constitution.
“This law is a transparent attempt to pressure public-school students to convert to the state’s preferred brand of Christianity,” the plaintiffs wrote in a joint statement in October. “Public schools are not Sunday schools. Parents and children – not politicians or school officials – should get to decide if, when and how to engage with religion.”
The state’s two Democrats weren’t enthusiastic about the law. Rep. Cleo Fields told NOTUS he thinks it’s not worth focusing on. Rep. Troy Carter said he sees the law as a “direct conflict” to constitutional separation between church and state.
“I’m a Christian and the Ten Commandments I’ve been taught my entire life, but I respect the fact that everybody is not of the same faith,” he said. “While I’m supportive of prayer, I’m supportive of faith, I recognize that people worship and have faith in different ways, and some don’t at all. So it’s not the government’s role to force someone to see our religion or our faith.”
As for the new administration, Carter said he sees a “pattern” of rhetoric that might indicate further policy like this. But he’s hoping it’s just words.
“I’m hopeful that some of it is just that, rhetoric, that won’t go as far as President Trump has said. I’m hoping that his gatekeepers, his guardrails, will pop up and steer us into more of a direction of reality and fairness and not to far extremes,” he said.
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Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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