Louisiana wants the Ten Commandments in schools but which version?

“I’m not concerned with an atheist. I’m not concerned with a Muslim,” said Louisiana State Rep. Dodie Horton (R), explaining why she sponsored a bill requiring every public school in the state — kindergarten through college — to display the Ten Commandments. 

“I’m concerned with our children looking and seeing what God’s law is,” continued the Republican from Bossier Parish in the northwest corner of the state.

Although Horton may not hold Catholics and Jews in similar disregard, her statute raises problems for their faiths, and others, as well.

Veto-proof majorities in both houses of the state legislature passed House Bill 71, with the only opposition coming from a handful of Democrats. Once it is signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, Louisiana will be the only state to mandate displaying the Ten Commandments, “on a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches” in every classroom, “printed in a large, easily readable font.” 

The very specificity of the bill, which includes a governmentally endorsed religious text, may prove its undoing.

Civil liberties organizations in Louisiana have already issued a statement calling the law unconstitutional. “Our public schools are not Sunday schools,” it reads, “and students of all faiths — or no faith — should feel welcome in them.”

Classroom displays of the Ten Commandments were held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1980. Nonetheless, Horton and her colleagues believe “the landscape has changed,” thanks to the conservative supermajority now controlling the court.

Even conservative judges may not be willing to go that far. The statute’s religious purpose is evident from its sponsor’s own words. 

“I hope and I pray that Louisiana is the first state to allow moral code to be placed back in the classrooms,” Horton said in the legislative debate. “Since I was in kindergarten [at a private school], it was always on the wall. I learned there was a God, and I knew to honor him and his laws.”

Posting the Ten Commandments is an essentially religious act — not only because it favors religion over non-religion, but also because it invariably favors one faith tradition over others.

The Louisiana statute requires a distinctly Protestant text, with Elizabethan language based on the King James Bible, which differs significantly from the versions used by Catholics, Jews and others. Some differences are inconsequential, but others have deep theological implications.

The Ten Commandments first appear in Exodus, and again in Deuteronomy. Although it is clear that God gave Moses a covenant of Ten Commandments, the relevant Exodus chapter comprises 17 verses, with no instructions for numbering or organizing them into 10 laws.

It is an act of interpretation to reduce the 17 verses to 10 poster-sized commandments, omitting some while abbreviating or combining others. Thus, any specific text always denotes a choice for one tradition or another.

The first commandment for Jews is “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” This commandment is missing from Christian texts, as it is from the Louisiana statute, likely because it is not considered an imperative (the Hebrew speaks of 10 d’varim, or words, rather than commandments.)

The Jewish second commandment — “You shall have no other gods before me”– is where Christians begin, as does the Louisiana legislature (using King James’s “thou” and “shalt”), with numerical adjustments down the line.

Theological disputes then arise, as the leading Christian texts diverge. For Protestants, the second commandment is a variation on “Thou shalt not make for yourself a graven image,” which is also used in the Louisiana statute.

This commandment, however, is found nowhere in standard Catholic iterations, which instead divide the erstwhile 10th Commandment — against coveting — in two.

I cannot say why or how this difference began, but I know it has provided grist for anti-Catholic bigots, who exploit it to accuse Catholicism of idolatry. Virulent examples are distressingly easy to find on the internet, often using vulgarisms to charge the church with removing the second commandment to profit from selling statues of saints.

I would not attribute these sentiments to members of the Louisiana legislature, but they illustrate how easily textual differences can reinforce religious contempt. To the faithful, scripture matters. That is why we have the First Amendment.

The framers of the Bill of Rights were acutely aware of the denominational struggles that afflicted Europe, and they understood that the entanglement of government and religion often led to strife. They agreed, therefore, that there should be “no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The framers did not mean to undermine religion, but rather to save it from the lure of secular power.

When there is no establishment of religion — enshrining the tenets or commandments of one denomination — no group needs to fear official domination by another.

That is where the Louisiana legislature went badly wrong. Even the simple act of posting the Ten Commandments in schoolrooms can signify centuries-old religious discord. In contemporary America, Hindus and Buddhists may also be wary of a government command to reject figures and imagery.

One of the few votes against the Decalogue bill came from Democratic State Sen. Royce Duplessis, who identified himself as a practicing Catholic. 

“I didn’t have to learn the Ten Commandments in school. We went to Sunday school,” he explained to his colleagues. “You want your kids to learn about the Ten Commandments, take them to church.” 

He didn’t specify any particular house of worship and, more importantly, he didn’t care.

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.