A US appeals court has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms to take effect, per the AP. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12-6 to lift a block that a lower court first placed on the law in 2024. However, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law. That's partly because it's not yet clear how prominently schools may display the religious text, if teachers will refer to the Ten Commandments during classes, or if other texts like the Mayflower Compact or the Declaration of Independence will also be displayed, the majority opinion said.
Without those sorts of details, the panel decided it did not have enough information to weigh any First Amendment issues that might arise from the law. In other words, there aren't enough facts available to "permit judicial judgment rather than speculation," the majority wrote in the opinion. In a concurring opinion, Circuit Judge James Ho, an appointee of Republican President Trump, wrote that the law "is not just constitutional—it affirms our nation's highest and most noble traditions."
The six judges who voted against the decision wrote a series of dissents, with some arguing that the law exposes children to government-endorsed religion in a place they are required to be, presenting a clear constitutional burden. Circuit Judge James L. Dennis, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote that the law "is precisely the kind of establishment the Framers anticipated and sought to prevent." The ACLU of Louisiana, one of several groups representing plaintiffs, pledged to explore all legal pathways to continue fighting the law.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
