Federal appeals court rules Louisiana Ten Commandments school law is unconstitutional
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by
Caroline Molloy
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A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public-school classrooms and state-funded universities in the state is unconstitutional.
Three federal appellate judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana said they affirmed a lower district court’s ruling that the statute was “facially unconstitutional.”
Last June, a group of parents sued the state over concerns the law that went into effect in January violates the separation of church and state.
The district court issued a preliminary injunction on the law last November in the five school districts that involve plaintiffs.
“H.B. 71 is plainly unconstitutional. The district court did not err,” the appeals court said on Friday, referring to the statute. “H.B. 71’s minimum requirements provide sufficient details about how the Ten Commandments must be displayed. Plaintiffs have shown that those displays will cause an “irreparable” deprivation of their First Amendment rights.”
The law was passed by Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature last year and says the text of the Ten Commandments must be written in “large, easily readable font.”
“The Ten Commandments must be displayed with a ‘context statement’ about the ‘History of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education,’ and ‘may’ be displayed with ‘the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance,'” the statute says.
“We are grateful for this decision, which honors the religious diversity and religious-freedom rights of public school families across Louisiana,” Rev. Darcy Roake, a plaintiff in the case represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said. “As an interfaith family, we believe that our children should receive their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement on Friday that she and her office “strongly disagree” with the ruling, according to NOLA.com.
