Welcome to an All Glasses and Mustachers episode of the Nonprofits. For our first segment this week, we're looking once again at the Ten Commandments in the classroom. Demian take us to Louisiana.
I'd rather not, but if I really have to, it is a long way from Australia as well, mind you.
But look look.
In an article from Newsweek published on October twenty third and written Bay and Natalie Venegas, we learned that Christopher Deer, the winner of Louisiana's Teacher of the Year award for twenty twenty, has filed a lawsuit against the State of Louisiana for its controversial statute HB seven to one, a mandate requiring all public classrooms in all schools in Louisiana to have a poster size display of the Ten Commandments alongside a paragraph explaining the Ten Commandments role in the
early stages early stages of American education and history. However, numerous individuals and groups have claimed that the display of the Ten Commandments is tantamounts of the violation of the separation of church and state, as well as conscripting teachers into promoting religious doctrine with the State of Louisiana entering
into a legal battle on numerous fronts. It seems that HB seven to one may not have been the most prudent or most well thought out idea, But I would love to get everybody else's thoughts on the matter.
Thanks, Damien, I think we'll stick with you at first here before we rip into this, What are the arguments in favor of this law? And do those arguments hold wider? Is there a legitimate secular purpose to displaying the Ten Commandments in the classroom?
Look?
In all my research, that the closest I could find was that there was a twenty twenty one Supreme Court decision that did actually uphold the idea that the Ten Commandments does have a place in the history of education in America. Now, whether you agree with that judgment or I haven't read through the whole judgment, all I know is that it exists. Yeah, that is that a sufficient reason to mandate the putting the Ten Commandments in the classrooms?
I'm not too sure, but that is honestly the only secular argument I.
Could find interesting. Interesting. All right, let's jump over to Kelly then for a little bit. Kelly, what do you think about this law as far as the effect it'll have on teachers in Louisiana. How will this affect teachers who, like Christopher Dear from the article, he opposes displaying religious materials in his classroom due to his personal beliefs and constitutional concerns. So what's the effect going to be on teachers?
First off, kudos to him for bringing the lawsuit, and I'm so happy that he was like the Teacher of the Year because it brings a certain amount of legitimacy with it too, So he's not just some crazy guy who's teaching at some small school in Louisiana that nobody cares about. Right, So kudos to him to begin with. But one of the things that really bother me about this, since you bring it up, is that the state is making and Damien even mentioned it in the intro, the
state is making teachers into religious teachers, right. They are now having to push a religion in their classroom, and not every child is going to be a part of that religion. If these were the five Pillars of Islam up on the wall, I bet some of the people that parents in those classes would be really up in arms. But I don't I really feel for the teachers in this case because me with geology and healing crystals, people
are always trying to turn me into a shaman. So I totally get it, you know, and it really breaks my heart to see the state kind of forcing this onto the teachers.
Like this so interesting. Interesting.
I want to get Steven's take on this too, and then I'm going to open it up to some questions for the panel. But Stephen, as half of our panel this week is not American, including yourself, I'm curious as to how does this look from the outside you what would it? What would this How would you react if this happened in your local school?
Oh no, dude, buddha Ey, it'd be pretty wild, you know, Eh, yeah, no, it's I I can't. I can't. I can't imagine religion having such an impact in our government set up here in Canada. And maybe I'm naive, and I know that
things can vary from province to province. Like obviously we all know everybody on this side of the border knows that Alberta is little Texas, that there's a lot of similarities between Alberta, Colorado, Texas, and so like maybe I think that's probably the most right leaning province that we have up here right now, So maybe something like that could possibly be entertained out there, But anywhere else in the country, I can't see the church trying to insinuate
itself so brazenly into our education system and into our into any system that has, you know, under the auspices of provincial or federal government. It's just wild to me how much sway and control religious institutions have in other parts of the world, such as Louisiana, et cetera, et cetera.
Now in Canada, though they don't have there's not an explicit separation of church and state like in the United States, right is that?
Am I correct with that? Or is there like it?
Well, don't like Catholic schools can still be funded by the Canadian government in.
Or maybe it's maybe there is, but it's just a little different than than what we have here or what we.
Used to have or should have here.
Like I don't think it ever enters into the converseate or maybe it hasn't been a part I think are foundationally. It's just never been in our DNA quite in the same way that we've our neighbors to the south have experienced, and so it's just like we have a Charter of Rates and freedoms, which you know, it makes a firm and a firmer differentiation between what religion Canada cannot be involved in.
I'd like Americans Canadians actually read their documents and understand, well, if.
I could jump in for a second, seven is in the same place as I. So Canada and Australia are both constitutional. Monarchy is run by currently run by King Charles the Third. King Charles the Third literally has his own church. The Anglican Church is run by the current monarch. So technically there is no church state separation. The church that the Anglican Church is the state sponsored church. However, and I can speak for the Australian the Australian experience.
If someone tried to put croationists or even I suppose fundamentally religious principles into a school classroom, we tell him to bugger off is an way. Now, what I did want to do here was I've actually got the Louisiana Statute HB seven to one on the screen in front of me, and I did want to just read a couple of sections out just to get your thoughts, get
the collective thoughts about it. So Section three says, in twenty nineteen, the Supreme Court of the United States further recognized that the Ten Commandments have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system in American Legion versus American Humanist Association five eight eight, and the Court also ruled that the displaying of the Ten Commandments on public property may have multiple purposes, such as historical significance
and represent a common cultural heritage. So that's Part three. Part four says, recognizing the historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation's history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morale to a functional self government.
And then, as Chapter seven says, sorry, Part seven says, the Mayflower Compact of sixteen twenty was America's first written constitution and made a covenant with Almighty God to form a civic body politic. This was the first purely American document of self government and affirmed the link between civil society and God.
How do you call a document written by a bunch of people that just came here from England an American fucking document. If you're not even they're not calling themselves Americans, they're still calling themselves British. How is that an American document? I don't get that just because it was written in America. No, that's bullshit, you know. So this is one of the problems is that we're going to start picking and choosing these things that we're going to use to justify to
do things that are unconstitutional. And let's face it, this is unconstitutional what they've done. We actually predicted her unknown privates when we first covered this story. We predicted it
was going to go to court really quick. And I am sure that our Teacher of the Year is going to win because this is strictly an unconstitutional thing and you can't pull up some document that was written before America was even thought about being pissed upon and use that as your justification for going over the American Constitution. That's ridiculous. Sorry, well look.
But look, look I can see the historical value argument. However, I'm not sure what mandating that it is shown in every classroom, So it's not just it's not actually just the Ten Commandments, it's the Ten Commandments plus like an explanatory paragraph that includes like the MAYFA like that explains the Mayfair Charter or whatever it's called as well may fake American.
It's all good.
I can see that, and I think it would be really good in a Civics class or like a history class or a social social studies class. But from my perspective, mandating it in every classroom is clearly.
Sorry, in every kindergarten classroom.
Yeah, yeah, well.
He's clearly I suppose pushing a religious what's the word, viewpoint or a religious position.
Right, right, So yeah, and it's from what you were saying when you were Damien, when you were reading it, it sounds like they're using the old chestnut, you know, you can't have morality without God kind of argument, but they're applying it on a national level, and so, I don't know, you know, to me, these seem very flimsy arguments, as is common when discussing this this type of topic. It seems like they're not actually trying to base decisions off of sound reasoning and.
History.
What they're doing is they're starting with their desired conclusion and seeing if they can piece meal a sound break out the duct tap and the and the w D. Foy and then put together some kind of Frankenstein support for this, and it just seems like it's a like kind of a backwards way of approaching it.
But sorry, go ahead, demon.
So I was going to say, add one more thing.
And this is a common thing that I find when discussing religion online with Christians is that they do make the argument that modern modern laws are based upon the Ten Commandments, you know, especially Western Western Western liberal laws are inherently based on the Ten Commandments, which is an argument that I personally find I wouldn't say goaling, but just incredibly stupid, because you know, we don't have any laws about working on the Sabbath, we don't have any
laws about committing adultery, you know, and where it says do not murder, you know, Louisiana is I think if I'm not, if I'm not mistaken, Louisiana still has the death penalty on it books. So it's like, go.
Figure right, right, yeah, yeah, Stephen, what do you what do you have to say about that?
Like, like if I tried to imagine, like what would if I were that teacher, if I was in that situation, what would my response be what would I do? Like, would I like, could I be disobedient? Could I like, okay, I will put this poster up backwards? Like would would that count? Would I get my wrist to slap for that?
Would I want to like put up? Okay, here's the Ten Commandments and here's you know, the Hindu equivalent of whatever the ten Commandments are, and here's the wise sayings of the Buddha, and we're going to put them all and maybe we could just drown out this one or at least like add some global contextual context to what just the fact that there is more to morality than these ten really weird things like like the Ten Commandments are not that great of a list of documents, and like, hey, enough,
like the first three are all about how God is jealous and if you don't love him completely, he will hurt you forever. And what is that doing in schools?
Is that the message we want to give our students?
Well, and my heart goes out, especially to the young kids, like we're talking about five years old, right, you want to put this list in front of them and then try to explain the deep significance of how this has impacted the law judicial system of their land. They can't understand any of that. Maybe they can't necessarily read the Ten Commandments either, but you're still planting that seed, and they are not able to understand why that seed is
being put in front of them. Why are you putting the Ten fucking Commandments on the same levels as the ABCS.
Motherfuckers?
Right exactly exactly, Kelly, I want you to continue on with that thought about how this is going to affect the students, and so this is we've we've we've mentioned that this law will promote a single actually a single version of a single religion. How do you think this is going to affect students of other religions or of no religion.
I think it's going to show them that their religion doesn't mean shit, not here in this classroom. You know, if if I got even if I got twenty eight Christians in the room and two Muslims, I'm just shitting on those two, those two Muslims. Like I was saying before, let's see, if we're going to put up the Ten Commandments, we also need to put up the five Pillars of Islam.
We need to put up as as Stephen was just saying other things, from Hinduism, from other religions, maybe we should put up a creation If we're going to get historical, let's put up the creation story of the Choctaw Indians for crying out loud, you know, because they were there before us, so as honor as we're going back in time. So yeah, I think it's just kind of shitting on the students by showing in that their religious view viewpoints don't count at all. These are the ones to count.
You're allowed, you have to follow this religion, these religious rules, and no other. And as it was pointed out too, I mean most of them don't even have anything to do with the law. The first four are just religious and nature.
The first yeah, the first four commandments.
Yeah, for the Ten Commandments.
Yeah, if I can, if I can ask the question, sure for the American part of the audience, is there a valid and legitimate historical background to the Ten Commandments in American culture?
You know, I've never heard about that, that particular approach until like in the last fifteen twenty years or so.
I remember as a kid ever hearing that.
For example, if you put a cross up on a like a gravestone or something, you know, we know cross as are associated with Christianity, but there is also like a very long historical association with marking the death the spot of someone's death with a cross. So a cross isn't necessary religious. But is there a valid historical purpose or meaning that can be tied to the Ten Commandments?
I think yeah, I don't think so.
On In fact, I think there's a you know, the only historical references to this kind of thing are really just the opposite. I mean, it's the separation of church and state. It's it's you know that that particular concept
is foundational to the United States. You can see that in our foundational documents, and it specifically says that, you know, the United States began as people fleeing religious persecution and so and so here we are, you know, basically, I say, they say that you're bound to grow up to be your parents. I mean, is that what's happening here? Is that the United States are growing up to be their parents?
Is that?
Well?
I was just going to say that while we don't have that institutional connection or history, and I'm pretty good at American history and I don't know anything like that, but there is a strong personal history because you have to remember that America was founded by a bunch of freaking religious fanatics. So there is you know, we have in that sense. Yes, there is a historical connection, but it's a personal connection, not an institutional one.
And Kelly's actually kind of made my point for me, was that the people who left England, yes they were, they were suffering religious persecution, so they came to the land of the United States of America in order to enact their own version of religious persecution.
Yeah, so totally, yes, totally.
So we've mentioned the Supreme Court and and and Kelly mentioned the Supreme Court in the same breath as saying going against the Constitution.
Now, the Constitution.
Lays out the duties of the various branches of government, and one of the duties of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution. And so in a way, you could argue that the Supreme Court can't go against the Constitution because the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says.
Yes, what's your what do you what do you think about that?
And can I just say two words, real query, Bud Scott, that's all you need to hear.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
I mean yeah, because because you so Kelly, you're arguing doing that, it's the role of the Constitution to stand in and defend the people when the rest of the government won't.
Is that kind of what you're.
Saying, when even when Scotus is wrong, we still have the Constitution. And so what happened here in that case is it took generations, but we got the correct ruling decades later. Right, the Constitution was upheld, but the Constitution even overrode the bad justices and the Supreme Court.
So Stephen, what do you say about that?
What's your perspective on the United States Supreme Court pushing the Constitution in a particular direction. Do you think that's their their warrant or do you think that they're kind of crossing the line here?
That's that's a really great question, Scott. That's absolutely I've learned. I've learned a lot about your judicial system down there in the States over the past few years, a lot more than what I knew before, and probably I know now less than what I will know in the future. But yes, you all have a constantution and a Supreme Court. Definitely interesting. Interesting.
So one last question for the panel and then I'm gonna I just want to get a quick answer, will go down one at a time. And so we've we've seen successful challenges to religious displays on public property before, things like Christmas decorations, et cetera. Is this situation wanting to display religious materials in public schools? Is this different or the same to that kind of thing or is it?
You know?
And how so, so we'll start with Damien and then we'll go to Kelly and then to Stephen.
I think from our atheist perspective, it looks like that this is going to go the same way, because from our perspective, it clearly looks like a display forcible display of religious materials. However, I think this is this is a lawyer's paradise, as I may say.
So, you think a lot of people are going to make a lot of money out of the litigation that's gonna oh yeah, fall from this particular manna from heaven?
Right?
Heck yes, heck yes.
Kelly, what's what's your thoughts in there?
Do you think this is kind of like displaying Christmas decorations or is it different?
I think I think it is different than Christmas decorations because I mean, let's face that there isn't a real lot of religious aspect to Santa Claus. I mean, there are other religious aspects to Christmas, but you can make Christmas decorations totally secular, right. And I was reading the follow up on this story and apparently a federal judge hasn't monished the state of I mean, no legal action has been taken yet, but he has verbally admonished the state of Louisiana for this lot.
So, okay, Steven, you what are your thoughts on that? How does this compare to trying to keep that Nativity scene off out of the community center yard? How does that compare to putting the Ten Commandments in front of students' faces?
Think of the children, children, Oh, they need to if we don't like it. Just it feeds into that narrative of any time we try to act responsibly in differentiating ourselves from the past, that's when people are motivated to say, oh, well, you're trying to erase the past, and that means you don't want to learn from the past. I'm like, no, we're trying to. We're trying to implement what we have learned from the past in a responsible way.
So it's so basically you're comparing progress versus conservatism based in a sense, right, yeah.
Basically, yeah, like it it's for us to It's not a matter of trying to erase what may have been an influence in the founding of a nation, but it's about dealing with it responsibly and not just in a way that is empowering to the majority, right, right, exactly.
If I could ask one more, one more question, really, why is Louisiana so concerned about the I suppose the history of American education, especially what happened in New England when I'm not American, but I think Louisiana is like the opposite side of the country almost to New England.
So I'm not sure why a state that was almost literally lead the last into the Union and was originally French has decided that, you know, what happened in New England in sixteen twenty is really worth teaching the kids.
That is totally not the question I thought you were going to ask. I thought you were going to ask, why is the state of Louisiana so interested in education when they are one of the worst states in the.
Country like forty nine or something or forty eight.
You're like, forty and if this public I suppose forcible teaching of the history of education and so a portion, why are they no other states that have similar mandates?
Are there? Are there states that have similar mandates? If so, what are they and how has it gone in those states?
We're dealing with that, and it's something similar in Oklahoma right now, where they were just ordered to teach the Bible in classes.
So well.
I think the issue though, is that it's they're not they're not concerned about the history of New England. What they're concerned about is getting their having their religious beliefs promoted in public schools. That just happens to be the convenient excuse du jour to use the French.
For our folks down in Louisiana.
And yeah, we are actually missing one important aspect of HP seven to one as well, is that the way they're getting around it is that they're not using state funds to fund the purchase and display of these They're soliciting private donations in order to get around You would think.
That would be kind of tipping their hand, right isn't that kind of giving it away?
Right?
Interesting? Okay, well, interesting conversation. I think we're gon, we're gonna have to cut it short here. Just give a chance if anybody has a last word, and now is the time to bring it up, all right, Well then we'll wrap things up here and we'll