Louisiana governor who said 'I can't wait to be sued' over Ten Commandments law gets his wish

Main: Then Attorney Genera Jeff Landry (R) speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File); Inset: A copy of the Ten Commandments hangs in a government building in Alabama next to a display titled “The Foundation of Our Law” that also includes information about the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler).

As promised, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Louisiana families with children in public schools to challenge what it called a “ blatantly unconstitutional ” state law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom.

Louisiana became the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom, though a number of other states have attempted similar legislation in recent years.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed H.B. 71 into law Wednesday, which requires that by Jan. 1, 2025, every public school classroom must display the Ten Commandments “on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches,” in “a large, easily readable font.”

Landry said at the time of signing that the requirement was a way of respecting “the original law giver, Moses.”

At a fundraiser just days before the signing, Landry bragged, “I can’t wait to be sued,” about the unprecedented legislation.

Plaintiffs filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Monday; they include a multifaith group of nine families that include parents who are themselves rabbis, pastors, and reverends. Their complaint alleged that the law violates the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and asked the court to block the statute’s enforcement.

The complaint took specific aim at Louisiana’s purpose for enacting the requirement:

The state’s main interest in passing H.B. 71 was to impose religious beliefs on public-school children, regardless of the harm to students and families. The law’s primary sponsor and author, Rep. Dodie Horton, proclaimed during debate over the bill that it “seeks to have a display of God’s law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong.”

The lawsuit also said that the law’s “context statement” — which said the goal of the legislation was to acknowledge the role of the Ten Commandments as part of the “religious history of America and Louisiana’s legal system” — included false statements about history. Specifically, it pointed to a section of the law that quoted James Madison saying, “(w)e have staked the whole future of our new nation … upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

“In fact, the quotation is fabricated. Madison never said this in any of his public or private writings or in any of his speeches,” said the complaint, referring to what has been called The Ten Commandments Hoax .

The complaint argued that the state’s mandate amounts to “taking sides on theological questions” given that there is widespread disagreement over which particular version of the Ten Commandments is preferred by various religious denominations. Further, it noted that many Louisianas are follow faith traditions that do not recognize the Ten Commandments and others do not subscribe to any religion at all.

The plaintiffs noted statements by the bill’s sponsor’s including Rep. Sylvia Taylor, a co-author and co-sponsor of H.B. 71, who said that posting the Ten Commandments is a way of “do[ing] something in the schools to bring people back to where they need to be,” thereby ameliorating the problem of people “lacking in direction” by “not attending churches.”

“This law is a disturbing abuse of power by state officials,” said Heather L. Weaver, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief said in statement. “Louisiana law requires children to attend school so they can be educated, not evangelized.”

Likewise, Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said, “By filing this lawsuit, Louisianans clap back and let the Governor know he can’t use religion as a cover for repression.”

The Supreme Court specifically ruled that mandating a display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms is illegal in 1980 when it struck down a Kentucky statute nearly identical to H.B. 71. However, the Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 has prompted the filing of many lawsuits challenging long-standing legal principles grounded in Supreme Court precedent.

Moreover, the Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton, formally overruled the landmark 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman , which created a test used for decades to determine whether a particular government action constitutes an unconstitutional “endorsement” of religion. Should Louisiana lose at the district court level, it would have the option of appealing to the ultraconservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, then the U.S. Supreme Court , which has been very friendly to matters of “religious liberty” of late.

You can read the full complaint here .

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