Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry recently signed into law a requirement that the text of the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.
House Bill No. 71 applies to public schools from elementary to secondary and even post-secondary institutions, with an exemption for charter schools.
The Louisiana bill is the first of its kind to be passed into law, and support is currently building in Texas to pass a similar one.
While other states have attempted comparable legislation, such proposed bills have failed to make it through the legislative processes.
In an effort to emphasize the historical and foundational importance of the Ten Commandments, the Louisiana Legislature also added a provision that calls for a four-paragraph "context statement" to be posted nearby, stating that the Ten Commandments "were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries."
Even though the legislation does not take effect until 2025, institutions on the left are already pushing back.
- MSNBC's website recently featured a headline that referred to the legislation as "a grave threat to civic morality."
- Slate's headline stated that the law "couldn't be more unconstitutional."
- Richmond Times-Dispatch published a piece that characterized the law as "a move toward theocracy."
- The Intelligencer's headline read, "Christian Nationalism Marches on in Louisiana."
Gov. Landry indicated that he is looking forward to defending the new Ten Commandments law in court.
"I can't wait to be sued," the governor stated, according to The Tennessean.
Apparently, leftist legal groups cannot wait to grant Gov. Landry's wish.
The American Civil Liberties Union, including the group's Louisiana chapter, almost immediately announced that it would be filing a lawsuit, as did the Americans United for Separation of Church and State as well as the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Each of the groups is claiming that the new law violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
It is particularly ironic when groups such as these attempt to censor The Ten Commandments using the First Amendment as their basis, the constitutional amendment that safeguards freedom of religion at its start, prior to mentioning a series of additional rights.
The first part of the Bill of Rights, which memorializes both religious expression and freedom of speech, was penned in a manner that was clearly not intended to be used as a means of restricting the free exercise of said rights.
The Ten Commandments is no ordinary piece of prose, but is instead a historical description and delineation upon which the laws of our nation are based.
The Ten Commandments detail the specifics of the "laws of nature and nature's God," which are set forth in the birth certificate of America, the exquisitely worded Declaration of Independence.
The declaration encompasses the laws that are "written on the heart," the natural law that the founders of our nation imbued into our system of government, particularly our judicial branch.
The actual reason that the left is engaging in hyperbole with regard to the Ten Commandments may have to do with the challenges that the words within the Decalogue present to the left's highly flexible standard for human behavior: moral relativism.
Rather than offering a situational ethics perspective, the Ten Commandments draw into focus the fundamental basis for the American legal system, which is expressed in the time-honored laws of Louisiana and the other 49 states.
In an April hearing for the bill, state Rep. Dodie Horton pointed out that the display of the Ten Commandments is "not preaching a Christian religion. It's not preaching any religion. It's teaching a moral code."
In 1956, at the New York opening of the iconic film "The Ten Commandments," director Cecil B. DeMille noted, "The Ten Commandments are the charter and guide of human liberty, for there can be no liberty without the law."
And without the guardrails that uphold us, our nation's heartbeat will no longer be heard.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A., in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. Visit Newsmax TV Hollywood. Read James Hirsen's Reports — More Here.