A federal judge said he will decide by Nov. 15 whether to temporarily block a Louisiana law requiring classroom displays of the Ten Commandments beginning Jan. 1.
U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles heard oral arguments Oct. 21 in Roake v. Brumley, a lawsuit filed in June to challenge the state’s mandate that framed or poster copies of the Decalogue be displayed in every public elementary, secondary and post-secondary school. A motion for preliminary injunction was filed in July to block the displays while the lawsuit is pending.
Judge John deGravelles
The nine Christian, Jewish and nonreligious plaintiffs argue House Bill 71 violates the First Amendment prohibition against government promotion of religion, that it usurps parental authority in religious instruction and would lead to alienation of non-Christian students.
The state contends there is no constitutional violation because the commandments will be presented for their historical contribution to the foundation of state and national law, culture and tradition. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed HB-71 into law June 19 and subsequently declared his eagerness to be sued in order to get the issue before the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices.
But legal historian and law professor Steven Green testified during the hearing that “there is next to no evidence” the nation’s founders considered the Ten Commandments when establishing U.S. government and law, the Associated Press reported: “Green said he based his conclusion on numerous historical documents and writings, including correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were influential in drafting the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.”
Liz Murrill
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill disputed Green’s testimony while speaking with media after the hearing, saying it was “not proper for expert testimony” because “he was not alive at the time that these things happened,” according to the AP report.
Overturning HB-71 is crucial to protecting the religious freedom of all Louisiana public school students and their families, according to an Oct. 21 statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which represent the plaintiffs.
“This law is a transparent attempt to pressure public school students to convert to the state’s preferred brand of Christianity,” the statement said. “Today we urged the court to block HB-71 from being implemented because it violates the Constitution’s promise of religious freedom and church-state separation.”
Parents and children, not politicians and school administrators, should decide how families engage with religion, the groups said. “Public schools are not Sunday schools.”
The plaintiffs include Darcy Roake, a Unitarian Universalist minister, her husband, Adrian Van Young, and their two children; Presbyterian (USA) minister Jeff Simms and his three children; nonreligious parents Jennifer Harding and Benjamin Owens, and their child; Unitarian Universalists Erin and David Hawley and their two children; atheist Dustin McCrory and his three children; nonreligious parent Christy Alkire and her child; and Joshua Herlands, who is Jewish and has two elementary-age children.
The Ten Commandments law burdens these and other parents’ First Amendment right to direct the religious education and upbringing of their children, the religious liberty groups said.
Chris Dier
“By approving and mandating the display of a specific version of the Ten Commandments, the law also runs afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition against the government taking sides in theological debates.”
The displays would also pressure students to venerate Louisiana’s preferred version of the Decalogue while “sending a harmful and religiously divisive message to students who do not subscribe to this version of the Ten Commandments that they do not belong in their own schools.”
A second suit against the law was filed in September by Christopher Dier, a New Orleans history teacher and 2020 state Teacher of the Year who has vowed not to display the Ten Commandments in his classroom, according to AP.
That action names Landry, Murrill, Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and members of the board of secondary education as defendants.
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