A federal judge on Monday will hear arguments on whether he should temporarily block a new Louisiana law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom by Jan. 1.
The hearing on that and other issues in a pending lawsuit challenging the new law is expected to last all day. It’s unclear when U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles will rule.
Opponents say the law is an unconstitutional violation of separation of church and state and that the display will isolate students, especially those who are not Christian. Proponents argue the measure is not solely religious, but has historical significance to the foundation of U.S. law. Louisiana, a reliably Republican state that is ensconced in the Bible Belt, is the only state with such a requirement.
In June, parents of Louisiana public school children, with various religious backgrounds, filed the lawsuit arguing that the legislation violates First Amendment language forbidding government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious liberty.
A point that I would like ask is that USA is a secular country, then why Louisiana state is promoting non secular ideologies?
Because the state government is full of christofascists and the federal government is scared shitless to step in on anything even tangentially related to someone’s religion. Someone might get offended, after all, so constitution be damned.
Because we’re independent states, and unfortunately we have consistently failed to hold many of our lowest performing states to the standards all decent humans should hold.
Jim Crow took us 150 years to end, and we’re still not completely free of it.
Mostly it’s easier for us who don’t live there, or no longer live there to ignore the nightmare they have to live through.
It definitely never ended