On this day on which we celebrate our country’s independence, we hear that a Tennessee legislator plans to introduce a bill in the next session of the General Assembly that would direct the state public schools to post the Ten Commandments in each classroom.
Earlier this year, Louisiana passed such a bill, its governor signed it and the poster-sized displays are supposed to go up by late this year in all public K-12 school and state-funded university classrooms.
As one might expect, the law already has been challenged, a multifaith group of parents saying that the law violates students’ and parents’ First Amendment rights.
But in Tennessee, we thought the issue about the Ten Commandments in public places had been put to bed at least a decade ago. And in schools, at least a decade earlier.
In 2002, an opinion by then-state Attorney General Paul Summers cited a 1980 United States Supreme Court ruling which said, “The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one’s parents, killing or murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. …