Louisiana unveils Ten Commandments posters for public schools featuring ‘Hamilton,’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mike Johnson
By Eric Levenson, CNN
(CNN) — Louisiana officials unveiled several posters of the Ten Commandments on Monday that could soon be placed in state classrooms and which feature House Speaker Mike Johnson, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The posters shown at Monday’s news conference are not the final options but instead represent potential ways for schools to follow the new law requiring all public school classrooms to put up a poster of the Ten Commandments, according to Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
One of the posters, titled “The House of Representatives and the Lawgivers,” features the text of the Ten Commandments in between an image of a stone carving of “Moses the Lawgiver” and a photo of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents Louisiana.
Another poster features a photo of Ginsburg, the liberal Supreme Court justice who died in 2020, as well as her quote praising the world’s “four great documents,” including the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The quote comes from an editorial she wrote for her school paper when she was 13 years old lauding the United Nations Charter.
A third poster is titled “Ten (Duel) Commandments” and features an image of Moses next to Lin-Manuel Miranda, the “Hamilton” playwright and actor, dressed in the role of founding father Alexander Hamilton. “Ten Duel Commandments” is a song in the 2015 award-winning musical with advice on how to kill a rival in a duel, a riff on the Notorious B.I.G. rap song “Ten Crack Commandments” about dealing drugs.
Other potential posters include quotes from former Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“All of these posters illustrate that there are constitutional ways to apply this law,” she said.
The news conference comes two months after Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a requirement for every public school classroom in the state to display a poster with the text of the Ten Commandments. A group of Louisiana parents and civil rights organizations have sued to stop the law, arguing a state requiring a religious text in all classrooms violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Murrill said the state will file a brief Monday, moving to dismiss the case on the grounds no one has been harmed because the law is not yet in effect.
The federal court ordered that the state cannot issue advice, rules or regulations about the requirement until at least November 15, according to the court docket.
The Supreme Court has previously taken up several cases about the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments in public spaces.
Most notably, in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham, the court struck down a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. Then in 2005, the justices ruled in mirror 5–4 decisions to allow an exhibit on the Ten Commandments at the Texas Capitol but to bar others at two Kentucky courthouses.
Speaking at the news conference Monday, Gov. Landry, a Republican, defended the Louisiana statute by saying “majority rules” and arguing it did not favor any one religion.
“The Ten Commandments is not symbolic of any one particular religion,” he said. “Many religions share and recognize the Ten Commandments as a whole. So really and truly, I don’t see what the big fuss is about.”
To any nonreligious parents who disapproved, he offered this advice: “Tell the child not to look at it.”
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CNN’s Dianne Gallagher and Jaide Timm-Garcia contributed to this report.
