The Ten Commandments: Coming Soon to a Public School Near You
Charlton Heston as Moses in The 10 Commandments.
Louisiana has become the first state in the nation to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms, up to and including state-funded universities. Since Louisiana regularly places towards the bottom of state rankings in education, health, poverty, violent crimes, and overall quality of life, Louisiana must find it gratifying that it is finally number one in something.
The mandate in question, H.B. 71, was signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, on June 19. Former President Donald Trump has enthusiastically endorsed the Louisiana law on his social media platform Truth Social.
Similar mandates have been proposed in Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah, and Texas. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has expressed chagrin that his state was not the first to require display of the Ten Commandments in schools.
This latest eruption of Christian nationalism is problematic for several reasons. First, there is the question of which Ten Commandments are we talking about? There is no single, universally accepted text of the Ten Commandments; Jews, Catholics, and Protestants each have their own version. The Ten Commandments (known among Jews as aseret ha-dibrot, or the 10 utterances—not Commandments) appear twice in the Old Testament with slight variations in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 and reappear in the Holiness Code of Leviticus 19. The aseret ha-dibrot disagree with the versions of the Ten Commandments as they appear in Catholic and Protestant Bibles, which also differ from each other.
To further complicate matters, the text mandated by the Oklahoma statute does not appear in any version of the Bible, whether Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic. Instead—and I swear I am not making this up—the wording in the Louisiana statute was first promulgated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. In 1961, FOE gave the state of Texas a six-foot high monolith bearing its version of the Ten Commandments. The monolith stands at the State Capitol in Austin. FOE improved upon the work of the Almighty by mashing together different translations of the Commandments, snipping here and condensing there. If that’s not ecumenism, I don’t know what is.
Interpretation is also a problem. Just what do the Commandments require of believers? Prohibitions against murder and theft may appear nonproblematic, but only until we try to decide what constitutes murder or theft.
And then there are the Commandments’ glaring omissions. Slavery is not prohibited. Nor is rape.[1] That’s not surprising when you consider that the Ten Commandments treat women as men’s property and place women on the same level as animals. The Tenth Commandment treats coveting thy neighbor’s cattle or thy neighbor’s wife as equally bad. (Coveting thy neighbor’s husband is presumably OK).[2]
If a Biblical text has to be posted on classroom walls (I say if), why not the Beatitudes? The Beatitudes are far more uplifting than the stern Ten Commandments. In the Beatitudes, Jesus teaches, inter alia: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”; “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy”: and “Blessed are the peacekeepers” (Matthew 5: 3-10). But then, the Christo-fascists behind the Louisiana law aren’t interested in being meek or merciful. Or peaceful.
“Public Schools Are Not Sunday Schools”[3]
Even before he signed H.B. 71, Governor Landry told the audience at a Republican fundraiser: “I can’t wait to be sued.”
Governor, your wish is granted. On June 24, a federal lawsuit against the Louisiana law was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. It will not be the last. Plaintiffs in Roake v. Brumley are Louisiana families representing a broad variety of religions: Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and atheist. Their Complaint asserts that the Louisiana law is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are correct, but that doesn’t mean they won’t lose.
Up until recently, predicting the outcome of the suit would have been easy. Plaintiffs would have prevailed under Stone v. Graham (1980). In Stone, the US Supreme Court examined a Kentucky law which required posting the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms. The Court struck down the Kentucky law as violative of the First Amendment Establishment Clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”).
The Wall Comes Tumbling Down
For now, Stone v. Graham continues to stand, but for how much longer? The Supreme Court’s six-Justice conservative supermajority is in the process of taking a jackhammer to what Thomas Jefferson called the “wall of separation between the church and state.” Conservatives deny this wall exists. They note that the words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the US Constitution. That is true, but proves nothing; the First Amendment free-exercise clause taken together with the establishment clause create separation of church and state without using the phrase. Far right Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) took time out from (allegedly) giving an over-the-pants handjob in a Denver theatre to declare: “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution.” Before this, Boebert said: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church.” Those chilling words are Christo-fascism in a nutshell.
In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), the Supreme Court held that a statute which had a primarily secular purpose would be upheld. H.B. 71’s proponents argue that H.B. 71 passes this test. They insist that the Ten Commandments are being posted not for religious reasons but because of their “historical significance” as the foundation of the US legal system. Governor Landry has said that in order to understand the rule of law, we need to start with the first lawgiver: Moses. Rubbish. US law is not founded on religion. The Constitutional Framers made sure of that.
The sponsor of H.B. 71, State Rep. Dodie Horton (R-District 9) gave the game away when she said: “I’m concerned with our children looking and seeing what God’s law is.” This followed Horton’s remark that the Ten Commandments were posted on the wall of the kindergarten in the private school she attended. She says she “learned there was a God, and I knew to honor him and his laws.”
The Lemon test has been crumbling since well before the current conservative Court and was not applied by the Court in a 2022 decision which allowed prayer in public school. It is unlikely that the conservative Court will require a secular basis for H.B. 71. Or the Court may unquestioningly accept the bogus claim that the Ten Commandments is an historical document and the source of US law. Expect the Court to uphold the Louisiana law.
Christians Don’t Hold a Monopoly on Virtue
Rajan Zed, who leads an organization called the Universal Society of Hinduism, has an intriguing idea. Zed is not against posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, but wants selections from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad-Gita to also be posted.
Why stop at the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita? Why not post the Buddhist Five Precepts, which include praiseworthy injunctions against killing, stealing, and lying. Looking beyond Buddhism, Confucianism teaches beneficence, responsibility, and the importance of virtue, justice, and community.
Consider also the many uplifting Quranic ayats (verses) like: “My [Allah’s] mercy encompasses all things” (Quran 7:156) and “Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear” (Quran 2:286).
A public school is not a public forum. You can’t just walk in and start preaching your religion. Or your politics. Under First Amendment jurisprudence, a public school is not obligated to allow any religious or political messages. But once it does, it cannot discriminate among messages on the basis of content (viewpoint discrimination). If a school allows a Biden poster to go up, it must also allow a Trump poster. If the Ten Commandments are posted, then Hindus have the right to post the Bhagavad-Gita. Muslims have the right to post hadiths and Quranic verses, and so on. The Roake plaintiffs don’t make this argument in their Complaint (plaintiffs want the displays of the Ten Commandments to come down), but other individuals and groups can.
Attorney and Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern says backers of religious displays in schools
“think they’ll win in the lower courts and they want to push this to SCOTUS and get a much broader right to proselytize in schools. Let’s be clear, the Ten Commandments are the camel’s nose under the tent in order to bring school prayer; in order to bring overtly Christian activities during school hours, and on school premises; in order to let educators turn themselves into proselytizers and religious leaders during the school day, and try to compel more children into Christianity. That is the goal here, and it is barely even concealed by its proponents.”
Notes.
[1] Penalties for rape are imposed elsewhere in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
[2] George Carlin humorously suggested that the Ten Commandments could be reduced to just two: don’t kill, and treat those around you with honesty and fidelity. Carlin is among countless observers who have noticed how flexible religion is when it comes to killing. You don’t need to know much history to know that religion is responsible for more and bloodier conflicts than any other single cause. Christianity and Islam in particular are notable for conversions by the sword. Carlin suggests that the commandment not to kill could be more honestly expressed as “Thou shall try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than the one you pray to.”
[3] Alanah Odoms, Executive Director, ACLU of Louisiana, quoted in Press Release: Clergy, Public-School Parents Sue to Block Louisiana Law Requiring Public Schools to Display the Ten Commandments, aclu.org, June 24, 2024.
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