Parents and civil rights groups sue Louisiana to block ‘disturbing’ Ten Commandments law

A group of Louisiana families with children in public school aresuing the state in federal court to block a new state law requiring every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments.

The plaintiffs include parents from multi-faith backgrounds – including rabbis and pastors – represented by a coalition of civil rights groups arguing that the law violates long-standing Supreme Court precedent and First Amendment protections against the government from injecting religion into schools.

“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every Louisiana public-school classroom – rendering them unavoidable – unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Baton Rouge on Monday.

Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed the legislation from a Catholic school auditorium last week after announcing that he “can’t wait to be sued” by turning Louisiana into the first state to mandate the Ten Commandments in schools.

Landry’s law appears to be designed to invite a federal court battle that will work its way to the Supreme Court. Conservative Christian legal groups have been angling for another shot at reversing Supreme Court rulings protecting the separation of church and state for decades.

Plaintiffsin the lawsuit – which takes aim at state school officials – have argued that the law not only flies in the face of First Amendment protections but also “sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments – or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments [the law] requires schools to display – do not belong in