A fundamental democratic principle taught in every basic US history course is that the constitution prohibits the government from endorsing an official religion or favoring one over others. However, actions by two Republican-governed states—Louisiana's requirement that public schools display the biblical Ten Commandments and Oklahoma's mandate that public schools teach the Bible—challenge the constitution's "establishment clause", which courts have long interpreted as separating church and state.
According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group that supports a lawsuit against Louisiana's law, lawmakers in 29 states have proposed at least 91 bills promoting religion in public schools this year. Rachel Laser, the group's CEO, noted that they tracked 49 similar bills in 2023. The movement is driven by opposition to what conservatives view as liberal curriculums, including a focus on diversity and LGBT rights, and by the US Supreme Court's willingness to overturn precedent as it shifts American law to the right.
Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, defending the Ten Commandments law in court, stated that legislators, frustrated by a lack of discipline in schools, turned to the biblical precepts to "start a conversation about order". When asked how non-religious parents could respond to the law, Republican Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry suggested they could tell their children not to look at Ten Commandments posters.
Conservatives are optimistic that legal challenges will provide the Supreme Court with an opportunity to reconsider longstanding limits on religious expression in public schools. A week after Louisiana became the first state to require schools to display the Ten Commandments since the Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law in 1980, Oklahoma's schools superintendent Ryan Walters directed all public schools to teach from the Bible.
Under Oklahoma's guidelines, teachers will focus on the Bible's historical context in Western society and American history, its literary significance, and its influence on the arts and music. Several Oklahoma school districts have refused to alter their curriculums to accommodate the policy change. Officials in both states argue that religious texts are crucial to understanding the birth of American government.
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL), founded in 2020, has coordinated legislative efforts across different states and produced three dozen "model" bills for introduction in state legislatures, including one on the Ten Commandments and another requiring schools to display "In God We Trust" signs. The next major battleground could be Republican-governed Texas, which passed the first law in the United States last year allowing public schools to hire chaplains as counselors.
The Texas board of education will decide in November whether to approve a new elementary school curriculum that includes Bible teachings. Texas Republican lawmakers are likely to revive bills requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in schools and allowing publicly funded vouchers to pay for student tuition at private religious schools. The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has taken an expansive view of religious rights in recent years, galvanizing conservative Christians.
