Regarding the June 19 online news article, “Louisiana to require Ten Commandments to be displayed in public classrooms”:
Those who act as if America was founded as a Christian nation are wrong. Our founding document, the Constitution, mentions religion only twice, and both times make it clear that the country is secular. The first mention of religion is in the body of the Constitution, in Article 6, which says, “No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or office under the United States.” The second mention is in the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
James Madison coined this phrase quite purposefully, and if you look at his writings you will see that he believed religion was a matter of individual conscience and belief and should not be coerced by the government.
Louisiana's law mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms is unconstitutional and morally indefensible. What should be posted? The Ten Commandments from the Jewish version of Exodus, or the Gospel of St. Matthew, or the Quran? All of these are sacred to different peoples, and the Ten Commandments are no basis for law for people who do not at all believe that the Christian Bible is the word of a single God – Sikhs, Hindus, Native American religious practitioners, etc.
Parents have the right to teach their children religion at home without forcing their beliefs on others, but Louisiana would do better with its funds than challenge the constitutionality of a law that clearly violates the First Amendment.
Hollis Raphael Wiseman, Lakewood Ranch, Florida
The First Amendment’s religious freedom and separation of church and state clauses must always be read together to define the scope of religious protection under our Constitution.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Church, these two clauses create a “wall of separation between church and state.” Therefore, the judiciary must never reconcile these two clauses in a way that allows religious organizations to use the government to advance their religious beliefs or to discriminate against the civil and legal rights of members of society who hold different or no religious views. Otherwise, our declared inalienable rights “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” would not be inalienable, and our Constitution would not “secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty” as our Founding Fathers intended.
Using the First Amendment as a weapon against religious expression is the opposite of what our Founding Fathers intended. The foundation of the Religious Freedom Clause is the right to practice one's religion without persecution. It is meant to function as a shield, not a sword.
Maurice F. Bagiano, Jamestown, New York
The author is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar.
Louisiana's new law is a step towards theocracy. It targets those who already believe in the theology of Abrahamic religions. The Ten Commandments contain overtly religious content and will soon be mandatory in Louisiana classrooms. This policy is born out of a narrow, shortsighted perspective and a distorted faith.
The First Amendment forbids state religion. It benefits both church and state. Theocratic coercion undermines the practice of true faith. Ideally, government laws are a logical set of directives aimed at making society as productive and fair as possible, so that we can all reach our potential and enjoy our rights. Promoting a particular religion, as this law does, is unfair and discriminatory, and contributes nothing to the primary goals of policy, such as protecting us or promoting the common good.
While my confidence in the Supreme Court has wavered in recent years, I don’t believe it has eroded as much as Louisiana lawmakers expect it to.
Trevor Stearns, Roseville, California
What is interesting is that the people who seem most interested in publicly acknowledging and promoting God's laws in the political arena seem to be the same people who pay no attention to them at all, as if God were a political pawn used to convince people of the “goodness” of liars and thieves.
I am reminded of Romans 2:6: “For God will repay each of us according to what we have done.” Reward is a two-edged sword, depending on the heart and deeds of each of us. To all so-called Christians who impose their filthy political beliefs on God’s children, beware! All are God’s children, regardless of what name we know Him by. And as an aside to the worldly-minded, here is a quote from Shakespeare: “The evil that a man has done lives on after him; the good is often buried with his bones.”
Donna Myers, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Louisiana's new law is the latest attack by the so-called Religious Right and Christian nationalists who seek to consolidate their institutional power by merging it with the power of the state, seemingly unconcerned about the sad and often violent history of churches attempting to do the same for the past 1,700 years.
In the spirit of cooler minds and thinking prevailing, and with an equally good chance of surviving a snowball's Washington summer, we should mandate a list of the “Seven Social Sins.”
The list was first articulated by the Reverend Frederick Louis Donaldson, a priest at Westminster Abbey, and was subsequently published by Mohandas K. Gandhi in 1925. The seven social sins are: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice, and politics without principle.
Though this is a list created by Christians and disseminated by Hindus, it is not about any particular religion but about an expression of ethics upheld among all peoples.
Rev. James M. Trachsell, Ashburn
If hard-right conservatives truly feel that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that informs the foundations of American law, then shouldn't the list be taught in history and political science classes? Not surprisingly, this is the same vague argument conservatives have used about abortion: that abortion is about women's health, but it's actually codifying religious beliefs into law.
The move also comes amid an ongoing debate about keeping age-inappropriate material in school libraries, which would see first-graders talking about adultery and coveting their neighbor's wife.
Dorothea Lerman and Robert Dempsey, Houston
My question is, which Ten Commandments? The Ten Commandments inscribed on the walls of a Christian church in Alexandria are not the same ones written in the Old Testament, sometimes called the Hebrew Bible. “I am the Lord your God, for I brought you out of the house of slavery in Egypt and became your God” is the first commandment as defined in Judaism. “Thou shalt have no gods before me” is the first commandment for Protestants. For Catholics it is a combination of the two: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no gods before me.”
Mandating the Ten Commandments in public places, as the politicians who passed the law want, would do great damage to the Old Testament foundations of America. Wouldn't it be better to study the differences between traditions on such fundamental points, rather than passing laws that would allow one tradition to eliminate another?
Judith Seligson, Alexandria
Would Republicans and their MAGA supporters amend the existing Ten Commandments by removing anything they find inconvenient, such as the Seventh Commandment (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”) or the Eighth Commandment (“Thou shalt not steal”)? Would they reword the First Commandment (“Thou shalt have no gods before me”) to suit a presidential candidate? Just curious.
Commandment 11: Don't mix religion and politics.
A new law in Louisiana is dedicated to instilling a set of values into the fabric of society. Banning the book. Overturning Roe. Doing their bidding. Remaking bedrooms and classrooms in their image. Controlling, as they say, bodies and minds. A revolution against evolution.
We are at a turning point in democracy. The most basic freedom – the freedom to think – is under attack. We are being manipulated, manipulated, messaged and abused. The circle is narrowing and narrowing, leaving us no room to make our own decisions. We cannot ask questions, we have to follow orders.
If we think this is no big deal, that posting the Ten Commandments on a classroom wall is a harmless act, then I worry about what comes into our lives and vocabulary next.
Robert S. Nussbaum, Fort Lee, New Jersey
