Louisiana governor 'can't wait to be sued' after forcing the ten commandments in classrooms

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63. Why Louisiana's radical new law on Ten Commandments, schools matters

The Supreme Court has said Ten Commandments displays in public schools are unconstitutional. Louisiana Republicans passed a new law on this anyway.

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https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/louisianas-radical-new-law-ten-commandments-schools-matters-rcna158001

In recent months, a handful of Republican-dominated states have flirted with the idea of government-sponsored religious displays in public school classrooms, though those efforts ultimately fell short. As NBC News reported, however, GOP officials in Louisiana actually followed through on the idea.

Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law Wednesday. The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-size display of the Ten Commandments in a “large, easily readable font” be in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.

Under the new law, which will take effect in 2025, assorted other documents — including the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence — can also be displayed in classrooms, but only the Decalogue is required.....

It wasn’t long before Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation announced their intention to challenge the new law in court.

“The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional,” the groups said in a joint statement. “The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”....

So why would Louisiana Republicans take a step that the Supreme Court has already rejected? It’s probably because they’re confident that the newly politicized high court and its dominant far-right majority — not to mention the brazen Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — will simply overturn the Stone precedent, doing fresh harm to the wall that’s supposed to separate church and state in this country.

“I can’t wait to be sued,” Landry said at a fundraiser over the weekend. Those were the words of a partisan who expects his ideological judicial allies to let him trample over Louisianans’ religious rights.