The Theocratic Attack on Louisiana

original picture taken by me in the French Quarter

Republicans are firmly about the business of undoing all the civil rights gains of well over 50 years in this nation. There were smaller encoachments along the way, but in 2022, the Supreme Court destroyed the right, on the federal level of women to choice their own health care for what is right for themselves, the fetus they are carrying and their entire family. If a woman is not ready to have a child, it was decided in 1973 that she had the right to decide to abort it.

The current Supreme Court decided that was too much freedom, and they needed to go back into women’s bedrooms, and doctor’s offices and forbit abortion, from the federal level. And of course, authoritarian states immediately started impacted their own female citizen’s rights as quickly as they possibly could. authorations, which define the Republican Party to a T, are totally authoritarians and the freedoms of personal choice guaranteed in the Constitution means nothing, apparently, to several of the members of the Supreme Court.

The fact that 1. Thomas is actualy exhibiting anti-Black doctrine even though he himself benefitted greatly from affirmative action. This reminds me strongly of the Queen Bee category, where women have progressed due to the fight for women’s rights and yet use the power they have gathered to make it harder for the next generation of women because they want to hold on to their uniqueness. And of course we can never forget the atrocerity of Alito who plays fast and loose with flags of rebellion and insurrection, although blaming it on his wife who claims, in return that she defers to him on such things.

But lets get to the next round in the attack on freedom, and especailly, in this case, Freedom of Reigion, an actual Constitution provided right for the individual that was right there from the beginning. It says “the government will establish no religion”. Certainly that should also mean no forced support for that religion, because the line between “create” and “support” is so narrow as to be non-existent.

But the new Governor of Louisiana, with his supporters in the state legisature have decided that religion freedom is not a right than is personal decisions about health care and family planning. So we now have a law that has been passed and signed that REQUIRES the 10 Commandments, a passage from the Bible, the religious basis of Christianity, ONE of the religions that people in the United States (and therefore Louisiana) follow, be put in every school room in the state.

Jeff Landry is so very arrogant that he has said that he HOPES he is sued. Well, on that we agree, because I also hope he gets sued. But let’s look at what this bill actually does.

1. It requires that all classrooms have a particular version of the 10 Commendments (not necessarily the one that most people have found in their Bibles at home should have one)
2. includes no State Funds to pay for these thousands of 11 x 14 posters with all 10 of the Commendments in bold easy to read type. Which means that someone is expected to donate to the School system to buy all those posters. What if there are not enough donated. Will teachers be forced to pay for that on top of staples, books and other supplies that Louisiana has failed to provide. (I don’t know about Louisiana but I do know that many places teachers are having to buy their own materials because of budget cuts, I doubt it is any different in Louisiana.
3. It is also “against the law” to call a student by any name but the name on their birth certicate. Oh, it is ok to call them by a nickname that is based on their names, but that is ambigious enough that some teachers might be afraid to use a unique name. Forget it if the person’s name is James or Jane, but loves their nickname instead, which is Peaches…or some other similar name.
4. Can’t ask a student what their pronouns are, or tell them what yours (the teacher’s) is.
5. They searched for every doctument that could find that implied that God was the source of the founding of our country…so they can justify (to themselves) this bill. They often used documents that were not even part of the founding of our country. For example, the contract for the Puritan settlement, one of once was killed off by the end of the first winter as part of this attempt.

So basically, what they did is go back to history and found everything they could where God was mentioned in the colonalization process, to justify ignoring modern diversity and forcing their will on to all citizens via the public school system. And to do this, they had to overturn personal freedoms going back further than the Roe vs Wade decision that the apparently corrupt current Supreme Court used to justify destroying Roe vs Wade after, it must be remembered, three of them recently being installed promising to adhere to past precedent in the decision making process.

The Right likes to claim that they are somehow more attentive to the Constitution, which they insist is only rightly used if it supports their version of reality. But let’s look at what happened in 1963.

In 1963, the Court ruled that required mandatory prayer and Bible reading in public schools, in other words a small christian religious service to state the day, was illegal and against the principle of separation of Church and State as shown in the “government will establish nor limit any religion”. And requiring, as was required while I was in school, mandatory (or at least understood that you were a pariah if you refused) Bible reading etc was against the civil liberties on many other religions.

Here again, the Right likes to remind us that an athelist mother was one of the people who brough that sue. That is true, she didn’t want her children what she called indoctrined into a religion she did not believe in or want her child to be. If we value freedom, and parents rights to raise their own children, as the Right is always insisting they do when the tables are turned, that should apply to the athelist. So I call crap on that excuse. But she was not the only one that was party, or supported that decision.

Many Christians and Jews disagreed with the “mandatory” reading of the Bible etc in public schools because it is a very short step from required reading, to required to read a certian version of the Bible or only be provided with one that may or may not be considered the “right one”. I suspect if forced to only read from the Protestant version of the Bible, Catholics would find something missing, and if the school district was Catholic, Protestants might just hear some readings that isn’t in their Bible kept at home.

I don’t personally have a problem with a few kids getting together and reading from the Bible if they all consent. Heck, I don’t care if a group of Islamic kids get together and read from the Qran, or the Buddhist kids get together and read from their holy writings. But the teachers do not have the right, in my not so humble opinion, to impose a particular book on anybody. Now, Louisiana hasn’t , fortunately gone that far………….yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Right Wing, probably trump supporting magpie would suggest THAT next if this is allowed to stand.

So I hope the state does get sued by the ACLU, which I believe has already started the process. I would even sign off on a petition or allow my name to be added to the lawsuit if that would help. So yes, Landry, I hope you get your wish…ie a lawsuit, and I hope and pray that you lose.

Here are 9 outrageous facts about Louisiana's Ten Commandments law