June 23 – Conservative politicians in Louisiana are determined to be as stubborn and foolish as those in a small town in New Mexico.
Louisiana recently passed a law requiring public schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms. The state that tried to make us forget white supremacist David Duke and crazy District Attorney Jim Garrison has taken ten giant steps backwards with this legislation.
Louisiana lawmakers hope to strengthen their mandate for Christianity in classrooms by claiming they are highlighting a historical document rather than a religious one.
Years of lawsuits at enormous expense lie ahead. Public money that would have to be spent on labs, improved internet access and retaining good teachers could ultimately offset rival lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union.
That’s what happened after Bloomfield, a community in northwestern New Mexico, placed a monument of the Ten Commandments in front of City Hall.
Most Bloomfield residents applauded the council’s decision. But at least several dozen publicly objected, saying the government has no business favoring one religion over another. The ACLU took on the case on behalf of the city’s underdogs, and its lawyers proved to be formidable.
A U.S. District Court judge and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Bloomfield violated the Constitution by placing the 3,400-pound religious monument on city property.
Bloomfield continued the legal skirmishes until the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2018. This closed the city’s last possible appeal.
The fallout from the case proved costly. Bloomfield, population 7,300, owed the ACLU $700,000 to cover legal costs. The city solicited private donations to pay off the debts.
As a Bloomfield city councilman, Kevin Mauzy had used his platform to advocate for the privately funded Ten Commandments monument to be placed on public land. In a weekend interview, I asked Mauzy if he had any regrets about a decision that embroiled his city in a court battle.
‘No not at all. You have to stand for something or you will fall for something,” he said.
When asked why his party lost the case, Mauzy said: “I think people can’t read. There is nothing in the Constitution about the separation of church and state.”
Then-Judge James Parker, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, took a different view. Parker ruled that the Constitution prohibited Bloomfield’s religious display.
“Given the circumstances surrounding the context, history and purpose of the Ten Commandments Monument, it is clear that the City of Bloomfield has violated the Establishment Clause,” Parker wrote. “Her conduct in allowing the continued display of the monument on city grounds had the primary or principal effect of endorsing religion.”
Mauzy told me the Ten Commandments monument was just one of four on city property dedicated to American history. What he failed to mention was that the other three monuments—featuring the Gettysburg Speech, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights—were erected after the ACLU sued Bloomfield for displaying the Ten Commandments.
No one disputed that President Abraham Lincoln’s speech in a devastated city during the Civil War was historic. Bloomfield’s portrayal of the Ten Commandments was not comparable to a monument about Gettysburg or documents created by the Founding Fathers.
After losing in court, Bloomfield moved the monument to a church near City Hall. Seven years of legal wrangling would have been avoided if the monument had been placed on religious grounds in the first place.
Santa Fe is much more liberal than Bloomfield. Curiously, a six-foot granite tablet containing the Ten Commandments is on display in Santa Fe’s Ashbaugh Park, near a city fire station. The monument was donated to the city in 1968 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Unnoticed by residents and tourists alike, the tablet of the Ten Commandments has drawn particular objections from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Ambiguity has shielded Santa Fe’s Ten Commandments monument from lawsuits. In Louisiana, the Republican-controlled Legislature has been careful to be flashy with its law to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
Many Louisiana lawmakers who say they are concerned about overcrowded lawsuits and maintaining local control over schools have gone public. Eager to file a lawsuit that will drag on for years, they care more about headlines than history.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.
