Louisiana became the first state to enact a law requiring that the “Ten Commandments” be displayed in every public school classroom. Others have proposed such laws, but they didn’t pass. Governor Jeff Landry, who is Catholic, signed the law in a Catholic school, which is somewhat strange since the law applies only to public schools.

The New York Times reports that the bill is part of a larger agenda to turn the U.S. into an explicitly Christian nation. Despite the fact that the Founders wrote extensively against religion controlling the state and said in the Constitution that there could be no religious test for office-holders, the religious right continues to shove their religion—and only their religion—on everyone else

The crowd at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette, La., applauded Gov. Jeff Landry as he signed bill after bill this week on public education in the state, making it clear he believed God was guiding his hand.

One new law requires that transgender students be addressed by the pronouns for the gender on their birth certificates (“God gives us our mark,” he said). Another allows public schools to employ chaplains (“a great step for expanding faith in public schools”).

Then he signed into law a mandate that the Ten Commandments be hung in every public classroom, demonstrating a new willingness for Louisiana to go where other states have not. Last month, Louisiana also became the first state to classify abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances.

“We don’t quit,” Mr. Landry, a Republican, said at the signing ceremony.

Taken together, the measures have signaled the ambition of the governor and the Republican-led Legislature to be at the forefront of a growing national movement to create and interpret laws according to a particular conservative Christian worldview. And Mr. Landry, a Catholic who has been vocal about his faith’s influence in shaping his politics, wants to lead the charge.

It’s ironic to see a Catholic leading the charge, because for many years, the U.S. was strongly anti-Catholic. Governor Landry’s new evangelical allies would not have welcomed him into the country or their tent. Anti-Catholic sentiment was so powerful in the 19th century that most states wrote into their state constitution that no public money could be sent, directly or indirectly, to any religious institution. Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently about the “separation of church and state.”

“Separation” benefitted both the church and the state, by keeping churches free of government regulation, and by keeping the government free of sectarian meddling. Under our Constitution, everyone is free to practice their religion or no religion, and the state cannot (should not) be used to enforce religious doctrine.

But the goals of the new religious dominionists is to make America “a Christian nation” and to impose their beliefs through law on everyone else, whether they are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, Deist, Unitarian Universalist, Satanists, or any of the hundreds of other religions or sects in this country.

The Ten Commandments is purely symbolic. It’s one step in the plan to outlaw abortion, ban in-vitro fertilization, ban contraception, ban same-sex marriage, criminalize homosexuality, and restore the primacy of the father in families. It is the leading edge in a rightwing putsch to control the government and all of us.

Will posting this religious document solve any problems? Will it reduce crime or promiscuity or adultery? Donald Trump is a philanderer who has broken that commandment.

The Ten Commandments say nothing about abortion or gay rights or the rights of racial minorities or voting rights.

The Ten Commandments are a wish list . We should all strive to be better people. Hanging the Commandments on the wall doesn’t change anyone’s behavior. If they did, they should be hung in every prison cell. Let’s see how that works.