A bill sponsored by GOP State Rep. Dodie Horton would shove Christianity in students' faces

May 18, 2024

Louisiana is on the verge of becoming the first state to require public schools to post a copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. While the State Senate modified her bill to help it pass legal muster, the changes may not be enough to avoid potential lawsuits.

HB 71, sponsored by Republican State Rep. Dodie Horton, initially said that the “Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.”

(Follow above article link to view photos/PDFs that accompany this article.)

This is par for the course for Horton. A couple of years ago, she proposed a “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would have banned all discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity through 8th grade while also prohibiting all K-12 teachers from even mentioning their own orientation or identity. It was nothing more than an attempt to erase the very existence of LGBTQ people. The bill thankfully didn’t go anywhere.

This Ten Commandments bill, however, sailed through the State House on a 82-19 vote. The version that made it through the State Senate (more on that in a second) passed 30-8 on Thursday. While some Democrats voted for the bill, the no votes all came from their side.

It’s no wonder those Democrats are against it. The bill even specifies the text that each Ten Commandments poster must display:

The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

More astute readers may have noticed that there are more than 10 commandments on that list. If that’s you, congratulations on having a better education than Dodie Horton.

It is genuinely bizarre that the same people who don’t want high schoolers learning about sex, systemic racism, or LGBTQ people seem to have very specific things they want kindergartners to know about about adultery and their neighbor’s maidservants.

The list also wouldn’t solve any real problems; no potential school shooter has ever plotted out a path of destruction only to reconsider after realizing the Ten Commandments say “Thou shalt NOT kill.” If students need a sign to remind them not to murder others, they have bigger issues. It would be great if they could see a mental health professional, but Louisiana lawmakers are currently considering another bill to get Christian chaplains in schools rather than hiring actual experts.

And, of course, several of the Commandments are flat-out useless since they forbid believing in false gods, making “graven images,” taking God’s name in vain, and not keeping the Sabbath day holy.

What about the other commandments? “Thou shalt not kill” ought to be pretty straightforward, but Louisiana is currently trying to expand its options for the death penalty in order to allow for more state-sanctioned murders. Horton herself has said rapists should be executed, adding “I’d love to hang them from the highest tree." While no one is sympathizing with rapists, her blood-lust is apparent.

The list simply has no purpose. What exactly is the educational benefit of telling children they can’t have other gods before the One True Christian God™? Or that they can’t make false idols? Or they can’t take God’s name in vain? Or that they have to rest on Sunday? Or that they can’t have sex with people they’re not married to? Or they can’t want what their neighbors have?

Do kindergartners really need to be told not to commit adultery? (If that line were in a library book, you know these same Christians would try to get it banned.)

And which teachers are clamoring for the government to give them this distraction?Which teachers are lobbying the legislature for the ability to tell children they’ll burn in Hell for all of eternity if they don’t follow a set of mostly arbitrary rules?

Need more reasons this bill is messed up? When Texas attempted to pass a similar one last year, Democratic lawmaker James Talarico did an excellent job of dismantling the arguments for why the Decalogue needed to be in school classrooms.

The Louisiana bill also said that schools had to pay for the posters themselves (through their own funds or through donated funds), but that they could also accept donated displays. That said, nowhere in the bill does it say what the penalty would be for schools that refuse to participate in this Christian charade.

This is obviously a blatant attempt to inject Christianity into public schools. To quote a federal judge who once declared illegal a Ten Commandments monument outside a Pennsylvania public school, “There is no context plausibly suggesting that this plainly religious message has any broader, secular meaning.” From the line “I AM the LORD thy God,” this is an endorsement of a very specific brand of Christianity, and the government has no business telling students what religious rules they need to follow.

This isn’t just a horrible idea; it’s illegal. Republicans who supported the bill even tried to downplay its religious significance during debate:

“The purpose is not solely religious,” Sen. J. Adam Bass, R-Bossier City, told the Senate. Rather, it is the Ten Commandments' "historical significance, which is simply one of many documents that display the history of our country and foundation of our legal system.”

See, everyone? It’s historically significant! Because items in the dustbin of history are still technically history.

It seems, however, that the State Senate knew that this bill wouldn’t last very long on its own. That’s why the version of the bill they passed included a set of important changes that could blunt the problems in the original bill.

For example, in the new version of the bill, the Ten Commandments posters will now have to come with a disclaimer of sorts—one that offers the supposed historical context, citing the Decalogue’s use in education long before our country was as religiously diverse as it is today.

That fine print wouldn’t negate the fact that this is still a religious imposition upon schools.

Another change? The bill will now allow schools to put up copies of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance alongside the Ten Commandments. That would suggest the Commandments are one of many ancient documents that inspired our legal system… but schools wouldn’t be required to put those other documents up. If the bill says the Christian list is mandatory but the secular texts are optional, it’s still an illegal promotion of religion. It doesn’t help that those three other documents all affirm the importance of faith in one way or another. (On the flip side, let’s not forget that a lot of conservative Christians may balk at the idea of their biblical list being placed alongside other documents even if they praise religion.)

Also, the Senate version of the bill explicitly says no public funds can be used for the displays. Only donations of posters (or donations of cash to purchase posters) will be accepted.

The bottom line is that schools will still be forced to put up the Ten Commandments posters. Which means the Senate’s changes won’t be enough to avoid lawsuits. (In Utah, a similar Ten Commandments bill was approved only after other historical documents were included in the mix, but even then, those documents could only be discussed, not plastered on classroom walls.)

Without those amendments, this Louisiana bill would be dead on arrival. But even with the changes, it’s not much better. Horton’s bill is so egregiously illegal that a virtually identical version failed to pass in freaking Oklahoma earlier this year. As one Democrat said at the time, the Christian Nationalist bill was “unconstitutional, exclusionary, and dangerous. By endorsing a state-sanctioned religion, they undermine the foundational principle of religious freedom upon which the United States was built upon.”

On Thursday, after seeing the State Senate’s revised version of the bill, the ACLU, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a joint press release warning the state against going through with this:

This bill is unconstitutional. The state may not require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Many faith-based and civil-rights organizations oppose this measure because it violates students’ and families’ fundamental right to religious freedom.

We are closely monitoring this situation and urge Louisianans to let their representatives and the governor know that politicians should not be forcing religious scripture on students. Our public schools are not Sunday schools, and students of all faiths—or no faith—should feel welcome in them.

It’s an open question what Louisiana lawmakers will do, but this bill is being closely monitored. The modified bill will now head back to the State House for approval before heading to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk for his signature.

In the meantime, however, it may be interesting to note that Horton made a key mistake in her proposed legislation.

Nowhere in her bill did it say the Ten Commandments posters had to be written in English... And the Senate’s version never fixed that.

When that happened in Oklahoma, activist Chaz Stevens wasted no time mocking up posters he intended to send to schools if that bill was passed, just as he did in Louisiana and Texas when they passed laws requiring “In God We Trust” in public schools. (Dodie Horton was behind that latter bill, too.)

Chaz shared with me some of the posters he now plans to donate to Louisiana schools if this bill is signed into law. (Some of the personal marks may have to disappear but these are among his many drafts.)

He’s raising money for his posters here in case you’re interested.

(Portions of this article were posted earlier because Christian Nationalists keep trying to pull this shit.)