The handwriting on the wall for religion in the classroom and gay marriage
On June 20, the governor of Louisiana signed into law a requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms throughout the state. The statute applies to the rooms where kindergartners are taught their ABCs as well as to the LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine where prospective doctors learn anatomy.
The law sure appears to be unconstitutional on its face. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Stone v. Graham that posting the Commandments in the classroom violates the First Amendment's prohibition on government establishment of religion. And yet, it's not hard to see why Louisiana is giving it another go 44 years later.
In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment gave women a right to an abortion in the first six months of pregnancy. In the 2022 case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the court overturned Roe, returning to the states the authority to regulate abortions. Why not see if the court will follow a similar path in overturning Stone?
The First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion …” In the early days of the republic, the amendment was understood to prohibit federal interference in a state's establishment of religion. For example, the Congregational Church remained the state religion in Massachusetts until the 1830s.
Only in 1947 did the Supreme Court rule the 14th Amendment extends the prohibition on establishing a religion to state and local governments. Louisiana is hoping, a la Dobbs, that the Court will ignore the 14th Amendment and return the question of establishment of religion to the states.
And, without doubt, the Louisiana law establishes a state religion.
Of course, what's posted in the Louisiana classrooms will be in English, not the original Hebrew. The source of the wording appears to be an early 1950s poster of the Youth Guidance Commission of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. At that time, the Eagles excluded non-Caucasians. In a case of history being stranger than fiction, the wording was used in a marketing campaign for the 1956 epic film “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston. In any case, the exact words are prescribed in a form that's been shortened, edited and even mistranslated from the Bibles I consulted.
For example, the Louisiana/Eagles version of the commandments contains only eight words pertaining to the Sabbath: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” The King James translation of the Bible includes an additional 86 words that go into far greater detail. Also posted will be the injunction, “Thou shalt not kill.” Biblical scholarship says the commandment should be translated to read “Thou shalt not murder.” As Professor Berel Lang of Trinity College wrote: “The original Hebrew, lo tirtsah, is very clear, since the verb ratsah. means 'murder,' not 'kill.' If the commandment proscribed killing as such, it would position Judaism against capital punishment and make it pacifist even in wartime. These may be defensible or admirable views, but they're certainly not biblical.”
The Ten Commandments appear in the Hebrew Bible (often referred to as “the Old Testament”), which is held sacred by Christianity and Judaism. However, what's being posted in Louisiana are not the holy words of either. Nor are they in any manner, shape or form from the holy writings of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or the multitude of other religions practiced in the state.
Why then post the Louisiana/Eagles version of the Ten Commandments? Gov. Jeff Landry explains, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you've got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses.”
That might be according to the Louisiana Bible, but the original lawgiver in my Bible is not Moses. He is simply transmitting God's word to the Hebrews. In the King James version, Exodus chapter 20 begins, “And God spake all these words.”
On top of that, from a historical perspective, there were other laws before the time of Moses. For example, the Babylonian King Hammurabi, who lived at least two centuries earlier, set down a legal code. It predates the Bible in saying if one person “should blind the eye of another, they shall blind his eye.”
I guess Louisiana state officials cannot resist fighting a rear-guard action to maintain their own beliefs as supreme. In 1972, 90% of adults in the United States were Christians, while in 2022, it was 63%. According to Pew Research, over 80% of Americans older than 75 are Christian, while only about 50% of those 20-34 are.
A futile fight against a demographic tidal wave is underway. First, the decision on whether to ban abortion was returned to the states. And now, the federal ban on establishment of religion is being challenged.
Next on the list looks to be the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Dobbs decision that the Supreme Court has a duty to “correct the error” and give the states back the authority to ban same-sex marriages. According to a recent Gallup poll, Republican support for same-sex marriage has fallen from 55% in 2022 to 46% today.
The question today is how this Supreme Court will follow up on its decision to return legislating on abortion back to the states. Is the responsibility to legislate on whether to establish a state religion and whether to allow same-sex marriage going to return to the states, too?
As is written in the Bible's Book of Daniel, “the handwriting is on the wall.”
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