FILE – Workers repaint a Ten Commandments billboard off of Interstate 71 on Election Day near Chenoweth, Ohio, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
The governor of Louisiana signed a bill Wednesday requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom in the conservative US state, reigniting the debate over separation of church and state.
The legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, mandates that the biblical text be on display starting in 2025 in all public school classrooms from kindergarten through state-funded universities.
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“If you want to respect the rule of law, you gotta start from the original law given — which was Moses,” Jeff Landry, Republican governor of the southern state, said at the bill’s signing ceremony.
The law requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed as a poster or framed document “and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font,” the bill’s text reads.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) responded to the legislation by indicating it would take the case to court.
“The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional,” the organization said in a statement.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution forbids the establishment of a national religion or the preference of one religion over another.
The bill, HB 71, is the first of its kind to be signed into law, though similar bills have been drafted and put forth in other southern states within the US “Bible Belt.”