Louisiana leaders share thoughts on blocked 10 commandments law

BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) — The federal judge who made the decision to temporarily block the law which would require public classrooms in Louisiana to display the 10 Commandments said in his ruling that the law would not only isolate students who are not Christian, but violates the First Amendment completely.

Governor Jeff Landry says, while he’s not surprised by the ruling, he completely disagrees with it.

“I challenge anybody to go find me in the bill of rights the words ‘separation of church and state.’ I continue to say that again and again and again. Our first amendment is supposed to protect us to to be able to protect us to be able to exercise our religion. It’s not an infringement upon the government telling us we cannot exercise our first amendment,” Landry said.

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Attorney General Liz Murrill agrees with Landry by saying, “we strongly disagree with the court’s decision and will immediately appeal, as house bill 71’s implementation deadline is approaching on Jan. 1, 2025. This is far from over.”

Landry says while he expects this to go to the Fifth Circuit of Appeals, he sees it going even further.

“It’s going all the way to the Supreme Court. There’s no doubt that this thing is going all the way to the Supreme Court,” Landry said.

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WGNO Legal Analyst Cliff Cardone believes it may be difficult for the governor to get any ruling in his favor, but he says there is a chance due to the current makeup of the court.

“We have a very conservative supreme court. They moved away from Roe v. Wade, so it would not be too unsurprising at this point if they tried to carve out an exception and saying ‘this is really for an educational purpose and not a religious purpose,'” Cardone said.

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