On Friday June 20, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Louisiana’s law requiring that schools post the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
On Saturday June 21, Governor Greg Abbot of Texas announced that he had signed a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state.
The goal of plastering the Ten Commandments in every schoolroom is promoted by Christian nationalists who want to see an official declaration that the U.S. is a Christian nation.
The Founding Fathers would be stunned to hear the assertion that the Constitution they wrote was influenced by the Ten Commandments. The First Amendment very clearly states the importance of freedom of religion, meaning that anyone could practice any religion or none at all. It also declares that government should not “establish” any religion, meaning that government should not sponsor or endorse or favor any religion.
CNN reported:
Texas’ law requires public schools to post in classrooms a 16-by-20-inch (41-by-51-centimeter) poster or framed copy of a specific English version of the commandments, even though translations and interpretations vary across denominations, faiths and languages and may differ in homes and houses of worship.
Supporters say the Ten Commandments are part of the foundation of the United States’ judicial and educational systems and should be displayed.
NPR reported on the decision striking down the Louisiana law.
Its supporters said that the Ten Commandments were the foundation of the American legal system. The state of Louisiana intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court’s ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by parents of Louisiana school children from various religious backgrounds, who said the law violates First Amendment language guaranteeing religious liberty and forbidding government establishment of religion.
The ruling also backs an order issued last fall by U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, who declared the mandate unconstitutional and ordered state education officials not to enforce it and to notify all local school boards in the state of his decision.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the mandate into law last June.
Landry said in a statement Friday that he supports the attorney general’s plans to appeal.
“The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our laws — serving both an educational and historical purpose in our classrooms,” Landry said.
The Founding Fathers would laugh at Governor Abbot and Landry. And Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who shepherded a similar law in Arkansas. It’s especially funny that the leader of their party has broken almost every one of the Ten Commandments. Perhaps the place to start posting them is in the Oval Office.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One of my favorite quotes on this topic by Kurt Vonnegut. “For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. ‘Blessed are the merciful’ in a courtroom? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”
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Nor is there much attention to the story of the rich man and Lazarus
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Exactly right!
My Christian friends keep saying “Beatitudes!!!”
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There are funny memes about Republican Jesus.
He calls the poor “deadbeats.”
He ignores the sick.
Everything is “me, me, me.”
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The gall & stupidity of these so-called Christians is just breathtaking. Ten Commandments—“the foundation of our laws”?!?! Don’t kill or steal are the only 2 out of 10 that have anything to do with actual laws. Not coveting, lying, cheating on a spouse, are all great moral aspirations (helloooo Donald Trump???), but they’re not laws. Honoring one’s parents as well. And then there are the first 3 focusing on the LORD! Please don’t exhume any Founding Fathers. They will have rolled over in their graves multiple times by now. We rational, secular, constitutional understanding American citizens have fight these Christian Nationalists everywhere. They are not patriots in any way. That’s why we should all join & support organizations like the American Humanist Association or the Freedom from Religion Foundation which fight against any form of religious influence or dominance in our country.
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Trump has broken almost all of them. Maybe he honors his parents.
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Now don’t be so quick to judge! Adultery is indeed coded into law regarding grounds for divorce. “Do not lie” is not even a commandment (although it’s coded into judicial testimony). I count 6 out of 10 commandments that are coded into law in nearly all countries. The ones that aren’t: swearing (taking name of Lord in vain), honor father and mother, have no other gods, and keep sabbath holy.
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While not exactly on point — this post addresses a related, religion-centric issue;
https://bioliteracy.blog/2017/05/24/go-ahead-and-teach-the-controversy-it-is-the-best-way-to-defend-science-as-long-as-teachers-understand-the-science-and-its-historical-context/
Mike
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I have long known that forcing the 10 Commandments into our public schools was unconstitutional and wrong in so many ways. But then, I think subjecting them to the independent and objective scrutiny (as Loved2Teach points out) that our math and reading curricula are subjected to — How exactly are these 10 rules the “basis” of the Constitution? Of U.S. laws? — could put the final nail in the coffin on this misguided and wrong-headed waste of our kids’ time. But then, I wonder one of these nut jobs would just pry the nail out of the coffin anyway, all objective analysis to the contrary. Can’t win sometimes, but I do not trust that people won’t find a way to “get around” any court ruling (think: What is the meaning of the word “facilitate” in a Supreme Court order, etc.?).
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You are so right, Paul K.
I can’t figure out how the Ten Commandments is the foundation of our laws.
The Constirution doesn’t say that everyone should worship a particular God. It protects freedom of religion. Atheism is protected too.
How is a commandment about covering your neighbor’s stuff relevant?
Or not committing adultery?
We have lots of laws that are not related in any way to the ten Cs.
They don’t say anything about speeding or stopping forced lights.
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Well, adultery is a pretty good ground for divorce, so it’s coded into law. I imagine the stuff about coveting your neighbor’s this & that is to help you avoid breaking commandment against stealing (encoded in criminal law). But it’s interesting to consider that it also might foreshadow the sort of unstable govt created by grossly unequal distribution of wealth… [not sure where I’m going with that!] I count 4 Commandments that are encoded in law in most (maybe all) countries. The ones that aren’t: keep sabbath holy, have no other gods, honor father & mother, don’t take name of lord in vain. And there are 2 more that are basically warning you against the kind of thought/ behavior that could cause you to break the main ones [don’t covet neighbor’s wife [adultery (/ murder?)]; don’t covet neighbor’s house, farm, cattle [stealing].
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My point is that we may have to put this to the test to settle it once and for all. But if Trump can challenge what the Constitution says in the 14th Amendment (birthright citizenship), I wouldn’t put it past him to challenge the Establishment Clause in the 1st.
But courts have some sense, still, I hope. For example, the 5th Circuit in New Orleans issued a unanimous decision last week, stating that Louisiana’s law requiring the display of the 10 Commandments was impermissible under the Establishment Clause (a.k.a. unconstitutional). They wrote:
“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. This is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause…”
That’s right: it’s a not-so-veiled attempt to promote a state-sponsored religion, however similar the commandments may be to a few laws in this or any other county, and SCOTUS said that in 1980 (Stone v Graham), but when we start having the president telling people the Constitution doesn’t mean what it so clearly says, all bets are off.
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“War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.”
–The Roberts Court
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Bob,
I was thinking of those famous words from Orwell yesterday when I read that Trump’s Press Secretary said that he invented the term “Peace Through Strength.” Yup, he coined it himself, she thinks. The responses on social media were very funny, attributing all sorts of famous sayings to Trump.
Apparently the phrase was first used by a Roman general in the 2nd century and today is the slogan of various military groups.
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Paul,
I expect the SCOTUS will consign the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the waste bin faster than the Birthright Clause of the 14th.
The High Court has ignored the Establishment Clause repeatedly and would have done so in the Oklahoma religious charter school case, but Justice Barrett recused herself because of ties to those who brought the case.
I could be wrong but I would be surprised if they toss out Birthright. I don’t recall that it has been tested in the past; I don’t think so. The Court takes little steps in several decisions before it ditches the plain words of the Constitution.
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The Christian Nationalists would like to make Christianity the official religion in this country. Perhaps this is one step and getting the courts to legitimize our “Christian values” or part of some legal strategy in that direction. The Ten Commandments could be one step in a bigger plan. These folks are fanatics and know how to play “the long game.” They did it with overturning Roe and school choice. It’s death to democracy from a thousand cuts. If this doesn’t work for them, they will probably look for another inroad to their goal. They also have a lot of dark money behind them as well.
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I watched a zoom last night where Katherine Stewart talked about her new book.
Money, Lies, and God.
The focus is Christian nationalism.
Lots of evangelical billionaires funding them.
Yes, they have everything backwards.
If the Founders wanted a Christian nation, they would have said so. They would not have written the First Amendment.
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I find it ironic that Christian Nationalists are such absolutists about Jewish Law. There are over 600 commandments in the Old Testament. Jesus refers to two commandments in the gospel, Loving God and Loving your neighbor, yet these zealots don’t refer to that much. To state that the Ten Commandments are foundational to our laws leaves out a lot of law.
“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion…” is pretty clear, but since our current Supreme Court has rejected common law, throwing out stare decisis, I guess their version of “originalism” means going back 3000 years. What the heck, why don’t we just post the 282 laws in the Code of Hammurabi in the classroom?
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I definitely relate to this post. I was unusual, raised in a mixed Prot/ Cath family: from age 5 to age 25 attended everything from various types of Prot churches [from somewhat bible-thumpers (super-local rural) to mainstream downtown) & Cath parishes ranging from rigid Irish-Cath msgrs to the liberal ‘60s fringe. [All that was available in a 30k upstate-NY collegetown!] To nutshell it, the most conservative (the bible-thumpers) were sturm & drang Old Testament preachers; the most progressive fringe Catholics were about the Beatitudes et al New Testament preachers. That gave me a pretty deep intellectual view on Christianity.
I don’t have a huge problem with the 10 Commandments. Nearly half of them are coded into law of most countries, & some of them are just about avoiding attitudes that could cause you to break key commandments. And it’s not like the they are strictly Judeo-Christian: they are honored by Muslims with only slight differences; Hindu and even Buddhist faiths correlate in key aspects. The problem with displaying them in public schools [attended by all faiths] is cultural. Regardless of facts tying all religions to most of them, the 10 Commandments are understood by public as representing Judeo-Christian faith. Therefore the display looks to other faiths [& those with no religious affiliation] as exclusionary. They are made to feel “different.”
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To hell with all faith religious beliefs.
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The majority of our Founders were Deists, not Christians. They did not denigrate Christian precepts, but had a wider grasp of spirituality. They would, if living today, probably note and celebrate the difference among the various religions that comprise our current populace as regards the 10 Commandments. As written, they are honored by Christians and Jews. Muslims also honor them with minor exceptions having to do with sabbath & certain prayers. Hinduism doesn’t have a direct correlation, but many of their precepts echo similar moral precepts. Buddhism follows “the Five Precepts,” which are similar in some aspects, although understood differently. Then there is the 30% today who are religiously “non-affiliated.” Not sure what Founders would have made of them. But probably would be reassured by the fact that 6 out of the 10 Commandment precepts are included in laws of our & nearly all countries on the planet.
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I think starting with the commandment and extending to our laws is backwards, but in any case, you’re not going to cover the first three.
If we start with the laws and try to explain how they are based on commandments, the explanation gets a little vapid and opinionated, rather than evidence-based. For example, Jesus himself, in the Sermon on the Mount, started with the commandment against killing and extended it to having evil thoughts against others. A few analyses I’ve seen today extend it in a similar, preaching-and-proselytizing manner to things like speeding and violating other traffic laws, since these put people’s lives at risk and have the potential to kill. Some even extend this back to the commandment against stealing, as speeding steals people’s safety. It just gets a little far-fetched.
But because we have to exclude the first three, we can’t logically conclude the 10 Commandments are foundational, which is the argument of Christian nationalists. This kind of analysis (in either direction) will quickly rule that out, leaving us with The Golden Rule or, as Rabbi Ben Hillel (a near contemporary of Jesus) reportedly said: “What you find hateful, do not do to another. That is the whole of the law. The rest is commentary.” And wouldn”t owning guns fall into this category or laws?
As a foundation, we’d run into trouble, since there may be no consensus across America about what people or ideas we hate, and we’d soon run afoul of free speech (or maybe that’s the point: to allow violations of the commandment against lying to preserve the 1st Amendment’s free speech). Plus, commanding faith or belief in the Christian god is fundamentally inconsistent with our Constitution. Putting the first three on a 16×20 poster in a public school is a not-so-veiled attempt to establish a state religion, and the “foundational” argument, which would not stand up to scrutiny, given taxes, guns, and other programs enacted in law by our Constitution, does nothing to nullify that.
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Paul K,
Agree– and I admire this thoughtful analysis.
The first three are like an announcement of a new religion: “This is who we are, how we differ, how to worship.” Note that “God spake” ten whole sentences before getting to the 4th Commandment, many of which were long and detailed [Exodus 20:1-11]. None of it has any relationship to civil or constitutional law.
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There are at least three different versions of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament.
It is not sure which will be displayed.
But everyone should be reminded that the Ten Commandments bear no relationship to Jesus or Christianity. Jesus is not included in the Old Testament.
If the Founders wanted to insert the Ten in the Constitution, they would have. They did not. Instead, they added the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion and bans state sponsorship of religion .
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