Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law puts religion-friendly courts to the test, experts say

On Thursday, as legal experts debated how courts would view Louisiana law, several religious leaders in the state expressed excitement and concerns about what the Ten Commandments measure entails.

Lawyers for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the ACLU said they plan to file a lawsuit against the new law next week.

“It is true that this Supreme Court has not been the best on church-state issues, but we believe this may be a bridge too far. Nothing they have said even remotely indicates that they would allow the Ten Commandments in every classroom, where students are a captive audience and are required to attend,” said Heather Weaver, staff attorney at the ACLU program for freedom of religion and belief.

Some external experts in the field of church-state law sounded less certain.

“Now we’re in somewhat uncharted territory,” said Michael Helfand, a professor focused on religion and ethics at Pepperdine University’s law school.

Efforts to introduce religion into government institutions, including public schools, have increased over the past decade as the Supreme Court has sided with those who want fewer restrictions on religion. State lawmakers, especially in conservative areas, have introduced hundreds of bills that aim to add everything from chaplains in public schools and “In God We Trust” signs at school entrances to public funding for religious schools through vouchers.

The Louisiana law is part of a new set of measures stemming from a 2022 Supreme Court ruling in favor of a high school football coach whose contract was not renewed because of his postgame prayers at the 50-yard line. The ruling Kennedy v. Bremerton School District threw out the test that has been used for more than 50 years to decide whether a law violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The Lemon Test, named after a 1971 Supreme Court ruling, asked questions such as: Does the law create “excessive government entanglement with religion?” or “Does the law promote or inhibit religion?” In the football coaching case, the Supreme Court said the Lemon test is no longer good law and that judges should instead look to “history and tradition.”

Noting that the Bremerton While the ruling says the coach’s actions are constitutional, the ACLU’s Weaver said the reasoning differs from Louisiana law because the court said his prayers were not “public” or delivered to a “captive” audience.

“Regardless of the Lemon Test, there has always been an understanding in this country that the government cannot favor one denomination or one religion over others. Here, not only does the state mandate the Ten Commandments, but the statute even says which version, and explains the text,” Weaver said.

The law calls for a specific Protestant text based on the King James Bible, which is different from the versions used by Catholics, Jews and others, let alone the versions used by other religions with their own faith texts.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-chair of Freedom From Religion, said the new law is “overreaching.”

“The religious right, Christian nationalist types and their legal outfits have been crowing since World War II Bremerton concludes that somehow all precedent against religion in public schools has been overturned. This is not the case,” she said. “The Supreme Court has been captured under Trump, but I hope it’s not ready to go that far yet.”

“There is no history of the Ten Commandments in our founding, in the Constitution, even though many ignorant people may think there is,” she said, calling the law the “antithesis of the Bill of Rights.”

Pepperdine’s Helfand said it’s true that the Founding Fathers invoked the Bible and the Ten Commandments when America was born, but they still called for people to worship or not as they pleased. The legal debate could now shift to the issue of coercion, he said. When is a person forced to engage in a religion he does not embrace? Could that also mean seeing the Ten Commandments on the wall of their classroom?

“You still can’t choose one religion over another,” Helfand said.

John Inazu, a religion and law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, noted that the Supreme Court, which struck down a similar law in 1980, was operating under a different legal approach. The earlier case, he wrote in an email, “was decided on a very different approach than the establishment clause. The Supreme Court has since shifted to a focus on history, text, and tradition. But it is not clear to me that the Louisiana statute survives even under the newer framework.”

Placing this version of the Ten Commandments in classrooms is not an ancient monument or tradition, but is “downright religious and monotheistic,” Inazu wrote.

He noted that the Supreme Court in 2005 upheld a Ten Commandments monument that stands on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin. However, he said the monument is separate from the Capitol itself, accompanied by an American flag and Star of David, as well as the seal of the civic group that donated it. The court ruled that the monument had a secular purpose and did not imply government approval of religion.

Under the tide of post-Bremerton Bills aimed at promoting religion in public schools were an attempt last year in Texas to pass a Ten Commandments measure like Louisiana’s. It was passed by the Senate, but was not taken up by the House of Representatives. But its supporters gave a voice to Americans who see the Supreme Court righting the American ship after half a century of unjust separation of church and state.

“There is absolutely no separation between God and government, and that is what these bills are about. That’s confused; it’s not real,” said Sen. Mayes Middleton (R), the Texas secretary of state who co-sponsored the Texas bill last year.

One of the authors of the Louisiana law said the measure isn’t just about religion — nor is it about the Ten Commandments, he said.

“It is our fundamental law. Our sense of right and wrong is based on the Ten Commandments,” state Rep. Michael Bayham (R) told The Washington Post. He said he believes Moses was a historical figure and not just a religious figure.

Those who object to the new bills say they reflect a country that is tipping into a new, dangerous phase in the balance between church and state, in which people in power in some places are looking to assert a version of Christian dominance.

“Look, I love Jesus and the scriptures, but this isn’t it. Raise a glass to LA and look like a fool on the national stage,” the Rev. Michael Alello, a Catholic priest in Baton Rouge, wrote on X on Wednesday. “How much taxpayer money will be wasted by taking this to court defend it, just to undo it?”

But the Rev. Tony Spell, a Pentecostal pastor from Baton Rouge, said the new law is an extension of his 2022 victory in the battle against pandemic restrictions at Louisiana’s highest court. Judges had dropped charges against him for leading religious gatherings despite pandemic lockdown orders.

“We have a conservative court in Washington,” Spell said, “but really this is about the people, the warriors, the fighters.”

Movements to integrate Christianity into every part of life have only grown since his confrontation with the court, he said. Now he’s working with groups raising money for the Ten Commandments posters, which they hope will soon appear in classrooms across the state.

Asked what the new law would say to people who are not Christians or do not subscribe to that version of the Ten Commandments, Spell said: “Being offended is a choice.”

Mark Chancey, a professor at Southern Methodist University who studies the use of the Bible in public schools, said the Supreme Court has placed the country in a new era.

“It’s the Wild West when it comes to government-sponsored religion,” he said, adding: “It’s not clear how these things will play out.”