Will Sutton: Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law is in the hands of a judge. Let them publish at home. – NOLA.com

The statute, Act 676, is quite specific. It mandates that a specific version of the Ten Commandments be displayed on posters no smaller than 11 inches by 14 inches in “large, easily readable type.”

The controversial law has the support of Christian evangelicals and others with a deep conviction that the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of American law and government.

Days after Landry signed House Bill 71 by state Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, into law, a group of south Louisiana parents filed a lawsuit to stop the measure from taking effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

On Oct. 21, U.S. District Judge John DeGravels of Baton Rouge heard arguments against publishing a group’s religious views in classrooms as if all public school classrooms were private Christian learning centers. The judge also heard the state’s arguments in favor of dismissing the case.

The judge rejected the state’s request to dismiss the challenge as “premature” because the law had not yet gone into effect. He said he plans to decide by Nov. 15 whether the state can force schools that receive state aid to put the orders in all classrooms.

Although I have not done any serious research, people I know with children or relatives in private or religious schools say that their children’s classrooms do not have posters reflecting the teachings of a particular religion.

That’s the job. One of the main arguments in favor of publishing the warrants in classrooms is the claim that the warrants have played an integral role in our nation’s founding and history. This is simply not true. Law says the displays reflect references to the warrants in some early American textbooks.

This is true, but the textbooks are not official federal documents or legally binding US laws and case law.

Although different language is used in each, the Ten Commandments can be found in the Book of Exodus in the Christian Bible, in the Muslim Koran, and in the Jewish Torah as the Decalogue. Exactly when they first appeared has been debated by religious scholars for centuries. The shared belief is that God gave the commandments to Moses on two stone tablets on Mount Sinai.

Contrary to the wishes of some, God did not deliver them atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Mount Ranier in Washington State along the Appalachian Trail, atop Stone Mountain in Georgia, or Mount Driscoll just outside La. 507 in Bienville Parish.

The Ten Commandments are not American and were not the foundation of America.

The founders of our nation did not make the commandments part of our country’s constitution. Nor are they cited in this document. America’s founders wanted the U.S. Constitution to be a living document, never straying from its core principles but changing as the nation changed.

Changing the constitution is not easy. But it is possible.

The commandments are part of the scriptures, but they have never found a place in our nation’s sacred documents.

They are not in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else in the US Constitution. The Constitution has been amended more than two dozen times, but not one of those amendments says that the Commandments are part of who we are as a nation.

As regular readers know, I am a proud Christian. I appreciate and respect those with other beliefs, so much so that I want them and their children to feel comfortable in our taxpayer-funded classrooms.

There are better ways to encourage and teach good behavior without subjecting students to one particular religion’s views on the subject.

I hope Judge deGravels finds a good way to tell Landry, Merrill, and state legislators to live by the Ten Commandments — and to post them in their private homes instead of in our taxpayer-funded classrooms.