The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has struck down a challenge to Louisianna’s law requiring the 10 Commandments to be posted in all public school classrooms. The court ruled that the plaintiffs in the case lack standing to bring suit. The court held, “There can be no doubt that the Ten Commandments bear immense religious significance. For believing Jews and Christians’ they are ‘the word of God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.’ But they also ‘have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system.’ That dual character forecloses any categorical rule against their display on public property. Instead, constitutionality turns on ‘the context of the display’ and ‘how the text is used.’”
They added, “Simply put, we cannot evaluate ‘how the text is used,’ because we do not yet know—and cannot yet know—how the text will be used. And ‘[i]n the absence of this evidence, we are not able to conduct the fact-intensive and context-specific analysis required by’ the Supreme Court’s Ten Commandments cases.”
5th Circuit Clears Way for Louisiana Ten Commandments in Classrooms – standingforfreedom.com
The federal appellate court ruled that the plaintiffs challenging Louisiana’s law mandating that public schools display the Ten Commandments did not show evidence that the law actually violates the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
[UPDATE] In late February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs challenging Louisiana’s law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms do not have standing, allowing the law to go into effect pending future legal efforts.
The law, H.B. 71, was previously struck down by a panel of judges from the Fifth Circuit, but following an en banc hearing, meaning all 17 judges weighed in, the court ruled that plaintiffs could not sue the state because they showed no evidence that there had been any violation of the Establishment Clause, which bans the government from establishing a state religion.
