Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law on public schools has been temporarily blocked by order of a federal judge

A coalition of parents trying to block a state law that would do just that require the Ten Commandments that will be displayed in public school classrooms next year have won a legal battle in federal court.

An order issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge John deGravelles grants the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, meaning the state cannot begin its plan to advance and create the law once the lawsuit plays out .

DeGravelles arguments heard on Oct. 21 on the controversial legislation, which makes Louisiana the first state in the nation to require all public K-12 schools and colleges to display posters of the Ten Commandments, the religious text revealed to Moses in the Bible and still revered today by followers of the Christian faith. The law requires that schools must comply with this no later than January 1.

Gov. Jeff Landry signed the Republican Party-backed legislation into law in June, part of his own conservative agenda that reshaped Louisiana’s cultural landscape abortion rights from criminal law to education.

This move led to a coalition of parents – Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and non-religious – to sue the state in federal court. They argued that the law “substantially hinders and burdens” their First Amendment right to raise their children in any religious doctrine.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation have supported the lawsuit.

In their complaint, the parents said the law “sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments… do not belong in their own school community and should refrain from expressing faith practices or beliefs that do not align with religious beliefs.” state preferences.”

Steven Green, a professor of law, history and religious studies at Willamette University in Oregon, testified against the law at the federal court hearing, arguing that the Ten Commandments are not at the core of the American government and its founding, and if Although that is the case, the Founding Fathers believed in a separation of church and state.

At a news conference after the hearing, Attorney General Liz Murrill dismissed Green’s testimony as irrelevant to whether the posters themselves violate the First Amendment.

“This law, I believe, is constitutional, and we have illustrated in numerous ways that the law is constitutional. We have demonstrated that in our briefs by creating a number of posters,” Murrill told reporters. “Again, you don’t have to like the posters. The point is that you can make posters that comply with the Constitution.”

In August, Murrill and Landry presented examples of how Ten Commandments posters could be designed and hung in classrooms for educational purposes. The displays provide historical context for the commandments that the state believes make its law constitutional.

One poster compared Moses and Martin Luther King Jr., while another played the song “Ten Duel Commandments” from the musical “Hamilton.”