Federal Court Blocks Louisiana Law Mandating Posting Of Ten Commandments In School Classrooms

Legal Issues

from the wave-after-wave-of-would-be-theocrats dept

Making the bold assumption their voting bloc could read, Louisiana legislators passed a law earlier this year that mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. Building on the inexplicable support of people who would find Trump’s actions and statements reprehensible if they were carried out by anyone else, legislators are joining forces with so-called “Christian conservatives” to implement the same preferential religious mandates they decry in Islamic countries and whose ancestors came the New World escape government-mandated religion.

So, we the people are being handed extremely stupid shit like the law described above. And then our federal tax dollars are being spent rejecting laws like these, while the more-logical residents of these states are seeing their local tax dollars squandered to defend obviously unconstitutional laws.

Then there’s the embarrassment of being associated with people like Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, who defended the new law by claiming any student bothered by it could simply just choose not to read the state-mandated Ten Commandments postings:

When asked what he would say to parents who are upset about the Ten Commandments being displayed in their child’s classroom, the governor replied: “If those posters are in school and they (parents) find them so vulgar, just tell the child not to look at it.”

Just pure bullshit. The same people who want to remove books from libraries or limit adults’ access to porn aren’t willing to tell those (performatively) offended by the existence of porn or literature that contains LGBTQ+ subject matter that all they have to do is not partake of this content if they “find them so vulgar.” But when it comes to God stuff, state reps go full Seymour Skinner and declare it’s the children that are wrong if they can’t attend a public school without being offended by posters affirming the state of Louisiana has picked a winner in the religion race.

Well, now it’s not just the kids that are not only right, but will probably be alright. A federal court recently handed down a ruling [PDF] declaring the mandate unconstitutional. This comes with an injunction attached, which means the state can’t force schools to post the Ten Commandments until further notice.

The state argued the requirements only mandated the size of the posting and its content. As supposed “evidence” of its alleged non-desire to violate multiple rights en route to, at the very least, implying the state had a preferred religion, it offered up a bunch of mock-up posters that surrounded the Ten Commandments with memes,

civics questions,

and whatever the fuck this is:

The court is not receptive to the state’s ridiculous pretenses. This law is clearly meant to tear down the separation of church and state. Just because the state employed an imaginative graphic designer to disguise the prominence of the Ten Commandments in mandated postings doesn’t change any of the underlying facts. Worse, it makes it clear the state is not willing to engage with this issue honestly by creating heads-we-win, tails-you-lose scenarios that would deter litigants from suing over obvious constitutional violations.

The court says the facial challenge to the law survives the bad faith arguments of the state government. It’s not going to bless these last-minute PowerPoint presentations, which only exist to force plaintiffs to engage in litigation Minesweeper to bring a constitutional challenge.

Plaintiffs do not seriously dispute that they mount a facial challenge, so, under Croft, they must prove the Act is “unconstitutional in every application” and that there is “no set of circumstances under which” the Ten Commandments could be posted in compliance with the Act that would be constitutional. Plaintiffs lament that Croft is the only Establishment Clause case in the Fifth Circuit to reach this result, but Croft remains binding precedent that this Court must follow.

AG Defendants treat this as a kill shot. They maintain that they can comply with the Establishment Clause by surrounding the Ten Commandments with nonreligious matter no matter how outlandish that material might be. That is to say, AG Defendants believe they can constantly change their iterations, leaving potential challengers like Menelaus trying to seize and hold the ever shape-shifting Proteus until Proteus eventually tires and divulges the hero’s way off the island. See HOMER, THE ODYSSEY 135.391–142.644 (Robert Fagles trans., Penguin Books, 1997). Or, phrased another way, AG Defendants would have aggrieved parents and children play an endless game of whack-a-mole, constantly having to bring new lawsuits to invalidate any conceivable poster that happens to have the Decalogue on it.

Yep, that’s not going to work, not under that precedent and in this court (emphasis in the original):

AG Defendants overreach. Critically, they ignore the fact—both in briefing and in many of their Illustrations—that the Act contains certain “minimum requirements” that the Ten Commandments “shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches,” with the Decalogue as “the central focus of the poster or framed document” and “printed in a large, easily readable font.” Further, these displays must be posted in every “classroom in each school,” all year round, regardless of subject matter, and regardless of the age of the student. Thus, the question is not whether the Biblical laws can ever be put on a poster; the issue is whether, as a matter of law, there is any constitutional way to display the Ten Commandments in accordance with the minimum requirements of the Act.

In short, the Court finds that there is not. First, Stone remains good law and is directly on point, and this Court is bound to follow it. Second, even putting Stone aside, for purposes of this Rule 12(b)(6) motion, Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that H.B. 71 fails to comply with the Establishment Clause analysis laid out in Kennedy and Fifth Circuit precedent.

That’s the Establishment Clause part of the First Amendment. Here’s the rest of it:

Having considered Louisiana’s laws (including the challenged Act and those dealing with mandatory attendance) and having evaluated the above allegations in light of the “fact sensitive” and “holistic” inquiry required by the Fifth Circuit in Mack, the Court finds that these plaintiffs’ concerns rise far beyond “subjective offense”; rather, Plaintiffs have shown a real and substantial likelihood of coercion, particularly given the fact that, in the school context, coercion has been found where “the school has in every practical sense compelled attendance and participation in a religious exercise,” Kennedy, 597 U.S. at 541–42 (cleaned up) […]

Each of the Plaintiffs’ minor children will be forced “in every practical sense,” through Louisiana’s required attendance policy, to be a “captive audience” and to participate in a religious exercise: reading and considering a specific version of the Ten Commandments, one posted in every single classroom, for the entire school year, regardless of the age of the student or subject matter of the course. And, despite the differences among the Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs (be they Unitarian Universalist, Reform Jewish, Presbyterian, or atheist/agnostic), the common threads are (1) that the required posting of the Decalogue conflicts with specific parts of their faith, and (2) that one of those articles of faith, shared by nearly all Plaintiff parents, is raising their children in accordance with their own beliefs and values. Considering the totality of the circumstances, the Court finds that the Act and its requirements are coercive and inconsistent with the history of First Amendment and public education.

And the law is blocked. For now. But mere moments after this decision was handed down, the state of Louisiana appealed it. (I’m not even kidding.)

Now it will be in the hands of the Fifth Circuit, which hasn’t been great at defending constitutional rights, whether it’s dealing with cop violence or handling cases that involve Trump acolytes seeking to reshape the First Amendment in their own corrupted, fascist image. Fingers crossed, the Fifth will reject this appeal as quickly as the lower court rejected Louisiana’s attempt to force legislators’ favorite god down children’s throats.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 5th circuit, elizabeth murrill, establishment clause, free speech, freedom of religion, louisiana, ten commandments