Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has a suggestion for parents who don’t believe the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public school classrooms across the state.
“Tell your child not to look at them,” he told reporters on Monday.
The Republican governor defended the controversial legislation during a news conference announcing how Louisiana intends to defend itself against a lawsuit that argues it is unconstitutional to hang the Ten Commandments in classrooms at state-funded schools and colleges.
Landry first signed the GOP-backed legislation in June, making Louisiana the first state in the country to require schools to display posters of the religious text, which was revealed to Moses in the Bible and continues to be revered by followers of the Christian faith. .
But the move led a coalition of parents – Jewish, Christian, Unitarian, Universalist and non-religious – to sue the state days later in federal court. They argue that the legislation “substantially interferes with and burdens” their First Amendment right to raise their children with any religious doctrine they wish.
Landry said the backlash against the law is unwarranted. House Bill 71 it passed overwhelmingly and included bipartisan support from some Democrats, he added.
Given that Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the state Legislature, which has allowed Landry to push a conservative, tough-on-crime agenda, the governor has held up the Ten Commandments law as an example of how “the majority can govern.” . “
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” he said Monday.
The law requires all public elementary and secondary schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments by January. Louisiana public school students will return to classrooms for the new school year in the coming days, but as of Monday, Attorney General Liz Murrill told reporters that she was not aware of any schools that have started hanging posters of the Ten Commandments.
Murill showed an example of a poster that could be displayed, saying it was “not very big.” He added that no public funds will be needed to print the posters and that they can be provided through private donations.
As the families’ lawsuit unfolds, Louisiana also agreed last month not to promote or create rules around the law until at least Nov. 15, when the case and several requests are decided in federal court.
Murrill said the state planned to file its motion Monday to request the lawsuit be dismissed, with officials calling the families’ complaint “premature.” She added that the state will argue how there are “innumerable ways” the law can be applied constitutionally, and said that displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms allows for “powerful teaching moments.”
The U.S. Supreme Court last weighed in on the issue of the Ten Commandments in public schools in 1980, when the justices ruled 5-4 that a Kentucky law was unconstitutional.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
