All in all, a bill passed in Louisiana in the USA to put children on the “straight path”
Moses' Ten Commandments will have been seeing since the new school year, students in the State of Louisiana when they attend the lesson in the classroom, causing strong reactions from human rights groups.
All kindergartens up to colleges in the State are required to have the picture with the Ten Commandments, after the law was passed on Wednesday, June 19, by the Louisiana House, which since May 28 has been controlled by the Republicans.
< p>The bill was signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, along with a package of other regulations he said were designed to “broaden faith in public schools.”
The Civil Liberties Union also points out that these regulations will lead to “unconstitutional religious coercion of students
Notably, the education “package” also includes laws that would authorize the hiring of priests in schools, restrict teachers from reporting sexual orientation or gender identity and would prevent schools from using a transgender student's preferred name or pronouns unless parental permission is granted.
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you have to start with the original lawmaker, which was Moses,” Landry said at a news conference after signing the bill.
Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.
The authors of the bill argue that the measure is not exclusively religious, but that it has historical significance.
The Ten Commandments are described in the text of the law as “fundamental documents of our state and national government.” .
“History records that James Madison, the 4th President of the USA, declared that '(we had) staked the entire future of our new nation … on the ability of each of us to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments,'” the text said.
The frames, which will be paid for by private donations rather than government dollars, will be “displayed on a framed poster or document,” the law says. The text of the legislation also requires that it be printed in large, legible font.
First reactions
However, civil rights groups have already challenged the bill, arguing that it violates the separation of church and state in public buildings. The American Civil Liberties Union even threatened lawsuits.
The frames will also be paired with a statement describing how the Ten Commandments “have been a prominent part of American public education for nearly three centuries.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana argued that the new law's language is blatantly unconstitutional and said in a statement that it plans to sue the state.
The union cited the Supreme Court's ruling in 1980 US, Stone v. Graham, which ruled that a similar law passed in Kentucky for the public school system violated the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.
In its statement the Civil Liberties Union also notes that these regulations will lead to “ unconstitutional religious coercion of students, who are required by law to attend school and are therefore a captive audience for school-sponsored religious messages.”
“They will also send a chilling message to students and families who do not follow the State's preferred version of the Ten Commandments that they do not belong and are not welcome in our public schools,” the Louisiana Association added.
However, so far, no other state has adopted such an educational method. .
