Count former President Trump among those who are backing Louisiana’s controversial and first-in-the-nation law that will mandate classrooms from elementary school through college prominently display the Ten Commandments.
“I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER,” Trump wrote this week on his online platform Truth Social. “READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG??? THIS MAY BE, IN FACT, THE FIRST MAJOR STEP IN THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION, WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED, IN OUR COUNTRY.”
“BRING BACK TTC!!!” Trump added, referring to the Ten Commandments.
The White House and the Department of Education didn’t respond to The Hill’s requests for comment on Louisiana’s new law or Trump’s remarks. President Biden, who is locked in a contentious reelection battle with Republican Trump, also hasn’t publicly addressed the issue.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican in a deeply conservative and religious state, signed House Bill 71 into law Wednesday after it sailed through the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature.
Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, vowed to fight the law they see as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The Biden administration didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s requests for comment on the official position about the Louisiana law. The president is a devout Catholic who regularly celebrates Mass with his family.
Opponents of the legislation have vowed to take the matter to the courts.
“Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools,” Louisiana’s ACLU chapter said in the statement joined by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.