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The American Civil Liberties Union immediately announced it
would sue to block the law, saying it violates the
constitutional separation of church and state and a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling.
Landry signed the bill along with a package of others he said
were designed to "expand faith in public schools."
"If you want to respect the rule of law, you've got to start
from the original law-giver, which was Moses," Landry said at
the signing ceremony.
In the Christian and Jewish faiths, God revealed the Ten
Commandments to Hebrew prophet Moses.
Other measures would authorize the hiring of chaplains in
schools, restrict teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or
gender identity, and prevent schools from using a transgender
student's preferred name or pronouns unless granted permission
by parents.
Landry also signed bills that would expand tutoring for
underperforming students, help improve math skills, and impose
fewer curriculum mandates on teachers.
Civil rights group ACLU and its Louisiana chapter along with
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the
Freedom from Religion Foundation announced they would file a
lawsuit to challenge the law that requires a specific text of
the Ten Commandments be prominently displayed in all classrooms.
No other state has such a law, the groups said in a statement.
"Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious
doctrine on students and families in public schools," the
statement said.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits
government from the "establishment of religion," and in 1980 the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Stone v. Graham that a Kentucky law
on the posting of the Ten Commandments in school was
unconstitutional.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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