The application of a modern, atheistic understanding of the “separation of church and state” in schools has been something of a failed experiment.
Ever since Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v. Schempp were brought before the Supreme Court in 1962 and 1963, respectively, the nation’s schools have been mostly bereft of any explicit practices of religion — such as prayer — as well as generally forbidden to display religious materials, such as the Ten Commandments.
And, since the nation’s public schools have grown more and more secular, they’ve degenerated into moral quagmires of poor discipline, violence, and terrible test scores.
One state, however, has proposed a law seeking to reverse this deplorable trend.
As reported by KPLC-TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana, a new bill, House Bill 71, was introduced by Republican Rep. Dodie Horton that would mandate all public school classrooms in the state to hang up posters of the Ten Commandments — including colleges and universities. If it succeeds, it would be the first of its kind in the country, according to KPLC.
The bill passed the Louisiana House in April with an 83-18 vote, KPLC reported.
On Thursday, the state Senate passed a similar bill 30-8, according to NOLA.com, the website of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The Senate bill included elements intended to head off court challenges, such as including a “context statement” to post next to the Commandments, NOLA reported.
The revised bill will need to be passed by the House before it can be sent to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry for signature.
According to KPLC, Horton said the purpose of the bill was to help reintroduce some of the moral guidance that has been sorely lacking among American youths, especially in public schools, though she clarified that the schools would not be required to teach Christianity.
Should more states push for similar laws?
Rather, Horton argued that an understanding of the Ten Commandments is vital to understand the founding and government of the United States.
Lee Patterson, a senior counsel for the First Liberty Institute, explained that, “It’s generally accepted in many legal cases that the Ten Commandments has historical significance and that its display is consistent with history and tradition, which is the governing legal test in such matters.”
The Commandments are on display, for instance, at the Supreme Court in Washington.
As would be expected, several left-wing groups and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose the bill.
“No federal court has upheld the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, regardless of context,” Heather Weaver, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said, according to NOLA.com “There’s a good reason for that too: Public schools shouldn’t be used to religiously indoctrinate or convert students.”
Now, it is true that public schools are not Sunday schools, and their primary purpose is not religious education.
However, what these left-wing advocacy groups ignore is that the lawmakers behind this bill were right in that the principles enshrined in the Ten Commandments were front of mind for the Founders when they created the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights.
The ACLU and similar groups have based their dissent on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as well as the now-sacrosanct principle of the “separation of Church and State.”
The thing is, that phrase is not found in the U.S. Constitution.
Rather, as First Liberty Institute explained, it originated in a private letter from Thomas Jefferson.
Indeed, all that the Establishment Clause forbids is a taxpayer-funded, established church on federal level — the purpose was not to eradicate religion from the public square altogether.
But, instead, the purpose was to prevent the federal government from entangling its grubby fingers too intimately into the affairs of religion.
To outlaw the Ten Commandments altogether in public spaces betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the moral underpinnings of the nation’s government.
The United States’ past and founding, its laws and government, are steeped in Christianity.
The United States has always been a nation of laws and rights, and the Ten Commandments are central to that.
Hopefully more states will recognize that, and soon follow Louisiana’s lead.
