Lawmakers in at least 16 states have introduced measures this year requiring public schools to display posters or images of the Ten Commandments, reopening a front in the culture wars that is almost certain to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The measures, introduced by Republicans and primarily advancing through red states, would require school boards to mandate the Commandments be displayed on easily readable posters of varying sizes. Some of the measures require displays in cafeterias, libraries and at school entrances.
Bills in Alabama, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have been referred to committees. Lawmakers in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Missouri have all introduced their own measures. Committees in Mississippi and South Dakota have rejected similar proposals.
“The Ten Commandments have been an enduring, timeless code of moral values,” North Dakota Rep. Nels Christianson (R) told fellow lawmakers. “They have been a part of American schools, our legal system and our public life since the Colonial era and the founding of our republic.”
Opponents of the measures say requiring the display of the Ten Commandments violates children’s religious freedom.
“These bills are part of an emboldened Christian nationalism seizing this moment with this administration and this Supreme Court to advance a Christian nationalist agenda that favors one form of one religion, Christianity over all others,” said Rachel Laser, president and chief executive of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Many of the bills are modeled on legislative language from Louisiana, which Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed into law last year. That measure was blocked by a federal judge in November, who wrote that the law violated a 1980 Supreme Court precedent in Stone v. Graham, which struck down a similar law from Kentucky.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) appealed the decision. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a narrow stay limiting the effect of the ruling, though a full hearing in the case has yet to take place.
In the Stone case, the high court ruled that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools held no secular legislative purpose. Justices relied on a precedent established in 1971 in Lemon v. Kurtzman, a case that set out what legal observers call the Lemon test. The Lemon test examines whether legislation serves a secular purpose, does not advance or inhibit religious freedom, and does not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion.
Supporters of placing the Ten Commandments in schools say they believe they have a path toward overturning Stone v. Graham, after the Supreme Court ruled in 2022 in favor of a high school football coach in Bremerton, Wash., who wanted to lead prayers on school property after games.
“The Supreme Court has rejected the extreme precedent of the Lemon test that guided courts for a few decades and swung back to the traditional norms of our government,” Christianson said on the House floor.
Conservative legal organizations say the more recent Supreme Court cases open a path to legalizing religious displays on government property.
“We understood right from the beginning the importance and impact throwing out the Lemon test was going to have,” said Matt Krause, a former Texas state representative who serves as counsel at the conservative First Liberty Institute, which argued in favor of the football coach. “I think it’s almost inevitable that these will end up before the Supreme Court.”
Critics of the legislation dispute whether the Bremerton case actually negated the Lemon test. Laser, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the Court’s decision avoided overturning precedent.
“Because the court did bend the facts, they were able to maintain this country’s longstanding promise to families that our children, who are impressionable and captive audiences in schools will retain their religious freedom,” Laser said. “It didn’t change the promise that our public schools cannot force religion on students.”