June 20 :
On June 20th, in the state of Louisiana: The Ten Commandments must be displayed in every classroom of all public schools in the southeastern US state of Louisiana as a result of a requirement that Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed into law on Wednesday, On the other hand, the bill's detractors said that using a religious text as a classroom requirement would be a violation of the US Constitution's establishment clause, which states that Congress cannot "make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
Last month, lawmakers in the state passed House Bill 71, which requires all state-funded institutions, from elementary to university, to display a poster-size representation of the Ten Commandments in a "large, easily readable font" in every classroom.
According to CNN, the law mandated that the wording of the Ten Commandments must be the primary focus of any school display, including posters and framed documents. It also detailed the precise language that the scripture must be printed in. Right before he signed it, Republican Governor Jeff Landry referred to the measure as "one of (his) favourites."
"If you want to respect the rule of law, you gotta start from the original law given which was Moses. ... He got his commandments from God," he added. Republican state representative Dodie Horton of Louisiana expressed optimism during the bill signing, saying, "it's like hope is in the air everywhere." Democratic opponents of the plan have voiced concerns, but Horton has disregarded them, arguing that the Ten Commandments have a legal history and that her bill would introduce a "moral code" into the classroom.
Nevertheless civil liberties organisations have immediately pledged to contest the statute. Protesters from groups such as the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and Freedom from Religion Foundation argued that the bill would lead to "unconstitutional religious coercion of students" and violates the First Amendment and previous Supreme Court rulings. according to CNN.
"The First Amendment guarantees that every person has the liberty to freely exercise his or her religion without interference from the state. In a joint statement, the groups emphasised that politicians should not use public schools as a platform to force their religious beliefs on students and their families. A high school football coach was reinstated to his position following disciplinary action over an issue around on-field prayer in the 2022 US Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which proponents of the statute have used to justify it.
According to the Supreme Court's decision, the school system was not allowed to limit the coach's prayers since they were considered private speech protected by the First Amendment. Legal scholars had anticipated that this ruling would open the door for increased public displays of religion since it further blurred the line between church and state. At the time, the court made it clear that a public institution's ability to tolerate religious speech does not automatically constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause.
