A federal judge blocked Louisiana from displaying the Ten Commandments in multiple school systems after parents filed a lawsuit over the state’s new legislation.

Official steps to implement the law in five school systems are on hold until at least November 15th as the case moves through the courts.

Per News Star:

This summer, Louisiana became the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school and university classroom by Jan. 1, 2025.

U.S. District Court Judge John deGravelles’s order said he will set a hearing Sept. 30 with a ruling expected by mid-November.

The ruling technically impacts only East Baton Rouge, Livingston, Orleans, St. Tammany and Vernon parishes, where parents and civil rights groups sued to block the new law, but the Louisiana Department of Education agreed not to issue its advice, rules and regulations on implementation before Nov. 15.

A spokesman for Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill insisted the law that goes into effect Jan. 1, 2025 isn’t stalled unless the court rules otherwise.

“Specifically, the five defendant school boards and the defendant individuals agreed not to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or promulgate related advice, rules or regulations before Nov. 15,” a spokesman for Murrill said, according to News Star.

“But they and all other Louisiana schools remain subject to the law and its January 2025 compliance deadline. So once again — the law is not paused, blocked or halted,” the spokesman added.

From the Associated Press:

Louisiana’s new law does not require school systems to spend public money on Ten Commandments posters. It allows the systems to accept donated posters or money to pay for the displays.

The law also specifically authorizes but does not require other postings in public schools, including: The Mayflower Compact, which was signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and is often referred to as America’s “First Constitution”; the Declaration of Independence; and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory — in the present day Midwest — and created a pathway for admitting new states to the Union.

The legal challenge to the law came soon after it was signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican who succeeded two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January. Landry’s inauguration marked a full takeover of state government by the GOP in a Bible Belt state where the party already held other every statewide elected position and a supermajority in the Legislature.

 

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