Adding a law to the state books every so often that puts a new twist on old time religion by Louisiana’s  congresspersons is always considered in good form by them, as doing so publicly affirms their loyalty and reverence to the gods in the Bible, and encourages, by the force of law, Louisiana citizens to do the same. Since the early 1980s, one fundamentalist Christian-based law after another has been heaped on the Louisiana statutes, and most of them remain. This year was a banner year of sorts—with the simpleminded bible commandments to mean-spirited anti-LGBTQ restrictions—making it the worst year ever.

**************************************

Louisiana’s Trek to Theocracy

Louisiana’s first modern excursion into religious legislation began in 1981, when a bill  titled “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act” was signed into law. The main import being that if their state were to teach scientific evolution in their public education system, they must also teach the “theory” of religious  creation—in short, everything on the Earth was created in 7 days. Arkansas had passed similar legislation only months earlier, and found its creation legislation ruled illegal by the U.S. District Court 9 months later. But it wasn’t until 1987 that the Louisiana creationism case in Edwards v. Aguillard made it to the Supreme Court, where it, too, was given the boot.

This setback was enough to chill the religious fire of fundamentalism in lawmakers—for a while. By 2008, a tweaking on the previous unconstitutional creationist legislation was gussied up as the modern day version of more of the same.  An law dubbed the Louisiana Science and Education Act (LSEA)  allowed public school teachers to use supplemental materials in the science classroom which are critical of scientific theories such as evolution and global warming, and to promote creationism as science” It is not sure how much supplemental materials or  teacher contributions have actually been used as valid criticism of  the accepted modern theories of evolution and other science, but the chance is not much. We do know that the law was challenged in five legislative sessions, and every challenge was rebuked. It wasn’t until the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2017 approved new science standards that were to go into effect in 2018, at which point the LSEA would be downgraded, even though the board agree to mention it in their new program. t

In 2016, the constituents of the very baptist Bossier City legislative district area elected Ms. Dodie Horton, who since seemed to come to the state legislature with one purpose: to get the populace back to the Lord—the protestant Christian one, of course. Her first mission was ready to take up the  cause against recognizing the existence of the LGBTQ community in her copy of the earlier “Don’t Say Gay Bill” first forwarded by the Florida governor and lawmakers. In the 2022 Louisiana legislative session, the bill didn’t make it out of committee, thanks in part to a large turnout of opposition, and to her inability to explain just what all this stuff about gender identity really means. “When the committee representatives asked her what the bill’s implications would be for a teacher introducing themselves as “Mr.” or “Ms.” (which indicate gender identity), Horton responded: ‘No, that’s not gender identity, gender identity is, you know, if I say I’m a man one day and then the next day I’m a woman.’ “ Clear as mud, got it? 

The following year she pushed the bill again and was successful in passing it in the statehouse, but it was subsequently vetoed by then-governor John Bel Edwards, who–a devout Catholic— wisely recognized the lack of Christian mutual respect and neighborly love informing the basis of the law. She also filed a successful  bill requiring placing a  small poster with “In God We Trust ” in all Louisiana public schools classrooms. It had first been named the national motto in the 1950s, and was supposed to somehow be a foil against ungodly communism. It was subsequently printed on currency and stamped on coins. Some years later, many states or local municipalities began printing bumper stickers and other badges to add flair to their police cruisers. 

The stakes in the religion culture war legislation grew decidedly this year. Fresh with her success with her “motto” bill from last year, Representative Horton decided to swing for the fences with a bill that would require posting “The Ten Commandments” in all public school classrooms, and become the first state in the county to have this law. Trying for the third time—and recognizing she now had the backing of the new governor—she re-introduced the anti-gay bill. She must have known that this Ten Commandment  legislation had been judged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1980 in the Kentucky decision on Stone v. Graham. But even  if she didn’t know, she had lots of support, from the fellow Baptists at home, the would-be theocrat in the governor’s mansion, and  Christian nationalist  councils and thinks tanks—and their legal teams, all which encouraged her to go for it—”the law is changing,” they encouraged.  She would hardly have needed the prodding: she just wanted her citizens to be good religious folks and her concern about the children” looking at and seeing what God’s law is”. and there can be no enthusiasm greater than pushing one’s silly worldview on as many as possible, while being content to leaving the smart people to write up the details (like the bill itself). Deciding which batch of commandments versions in the Bible (there are four of them) was was a pesky detail. Andrew Seidel, lawyer and representative of Americans United says the version chosen was the one used by film producer Cecil B. DeMille in his epic film of the same name released in the 1950s. That must have been a popular choice.

Entering a new law about religion in the public domain is rife with problems, the least of which, in this case, is which version of the biblical commandments is to be used. Start with the First Amendment and the establishment clause.  The interpretation of the language of that clause has for almost 50 years was drawn from the Lemon v. Kurtzmann (1971) case at the Supreme Court. From it evolved the “Lemon Test,” which turned on three separate “prongs” to judge a possible breach of the law or judgment, the most memorable of which is whether or not the action has “a primary secular purpose.” This approach worked well regularly for almost 40 years, until more conservative justices at the Supreme Court began to question its validity as the best way to judge anymore. Scalia and Thomas were the early grumblers, and then Kavanaugh and Gorsuch joined in the chorus. Gorsuch wrote the decision on Kennedy v. Bremerton School District in 2022 (the football coach leading his players in prayer on the football field), in which Gorsuch said Lemon was “abandoned”, and replaced by a consideration of “historical practices and understandings.” 

That is  why every conservation politician has included history, tradition, and culture in her religion-speak vocabulary. It affirms a religion’s validity by its existence in past times, while not discussing its shortcomings in those past times, or showing that its existence in current times is an indicator of  positive influence for future times. “It’s our history,” “it’s part of our foundation,” “it’s part of our national makeup,” “we’ve been doing this from the beginning” are used interchangeably. In his excitement in signing the Ten Commandment posters into law, the governor seemed to confuse the “law recorder” with the actual lawgiver in proclaiming the law would be a tribute to our “original lawgiver, which [sic] was Moses”. Later, in an email from the governor’s campaign-fundraising committee  he said he is fighting “to advance the values of our Founding Fathers and the beating heart of Western Civilization against this Marxists, anti-American and anti-Christian LGBTQ agenda.” Projecting one’s modern fundamentalist values on deceased deists, unitarians, and Anglicans is a good example of why “history’ is not a good choice for deciding modern problems. 

As the commandment law works it way through the courts, guesswork about historic truths, and placing positive or negative values on cultures and traditions will likely win the day, and remain the law, even without an identifiable “truth” solidly linked with “history or understandings” vis-a-vis the Establishment Clause. There will have been no simpler or more straightforward solution than the Occam’s Razor that is the Lemon Test. Is the primary purpose of the law secular, or not? If not, let it become a trashcan example of historical entanglements—unquantifiable relations to the  past that have no relation to the current law in question; and send the paperwork back to its author—marked with F, for emphasis. 

***************

Marty Bankson, ed.

July 17, 2024