A federal judge on Monday will hear arguments on whether he should temporarily block a new Louisiana law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom by Jan. 1.

The hearing on that and other issues in a pending lawsuit challenging the new law is expected to last all day. It’s unclear when U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles will rule.

Opponents say the law is an unconstitutional violation of separation of church and state and that the display will isolate students, especially those who are not Christian. Proponents argue the measure is not solely religious, but has historical significance to the foundation of U.S. law. Louisiana, a reliably Republican state that is ensconced in the Bible Belt, is the only state with such a requirement.

In June, parents of Louisiana public school children, with various religious backgrounds, filed the lawsuit arguing that the legislation violates First Amendment language forbidding government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious liberty.

  • Dragonstaff@leminal.space
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    6 hours ago

    I went to private religious schools until my second year of college. None had the 10 commandments posted anywhere. I know we’re all in agreement that this is a severe violation of the first amendment. As a Christian I hate that these idiots are using my faith as a cudgel (as has happened far too often).

    But also, this is incredibly tacky.

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    has historical significance to the foundation of US law

    Inasmuch as it’s explicitly forbidden by the foundation of US law from being included in US law?

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yeah, it isn’t like we don’t have like 250 years of documents and court rulings saying this exact thing is clearly unconstitutional.

      • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        What part of “Louisiana” did you fail to grasp.

        If they can pass a law to stroke off their “God-fearing” idiots while embezzling every dollar of federal funding they can, that’s what they’re going to do.

        Waiting for the state law that says all federal highway funding has to be used for abortion prevention, specifically at the marketing firm run by the Governor’s idiot brother.

        No laws in the South, just cops.

        • Dainterhawk999@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          A point that I would like ask is that USA is a secular country, then why Louisiana state is promoting non secular ideologies?

          • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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            4 hours ago

            Because the state government is full of christofascists and the federal government is scared shitless to step in on anything even tangentially related to someone’s religion. Someone might get offended, after all, so constitution be damned.

          • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Because we’re independent states, and unfortunately we have consistently failed to hold many of our lowest performing states to the standards all decent humans should hold.

            Jim Crow took us 150 years to end, and we’re still not completely free of it.

            Mostly it’s easier for us who don’t live there, or no longer live there to ignore the nightmare they have to live through.

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      In Texas two years ago it was a ballot question weather or not to put a wheelchair ramp on a federal court building, which is explicitly required by the ADA, an over 30 year old law, and they voted no. Laws don’t matter if no ones gonna bring consequences.

    • Iampossiblyatwork@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      “The phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution. However, the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a religion or interfering with the free exercise of religion.”

      Jefferson letter:" I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

      https://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall-html/

      So they’re very closely related but don’t go around saying it’s in the Constitution because it isn’t.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This is exactly what they want to happen. They want this to get up to SCOTUS so SCOTUS can declare the U.S. a Christian nation.

  • hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    If you read the law as written and voted on in Louisiana, it lists 11 Commandments, because there isn’t one list of Commandments that these people can agree on. But they can agree that everyone should be forced to look at them in school?

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      3 hours ago

      Also many Christian groups seem to have a very liberal understanding of the first two commandments.

      1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me - The whole trinity stuff is considered to be contradictory to the singularity of God by Jews and Muslims.

      2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image - There is plenty Christian iconography and paintings, depicting God, Angels, Jesus, who by the logic of the trinity is part of God, hence a clear violation of that commandment to depict him.