By Will Hall BATON ROUGE, La. (LBM) – Gov. Jeff Landry signed HB71 into law, June 19, making Louisiana the first state in the nation to restore the display of the Ten Commandments in its schools. The legislation, which was authored by Rep. Dodie Horton, a member with First Baptist Church, Haughton, Louisiana, requires a poster or framed document of the Ten Commandments (“at least eleven inches by fourteen inches,” and in “large, easily readable font”) to be placed in every state-funded classroom, kindergarten through college, no later than Jan. 1, 2025. The law uses a version of the Ten Commandments that is adapted from the King James Bible, and it requires the display to include a “context statement” about “The History of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education.” That mandated paragraph emphasizes “The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” beginning with the “The New England Primer,” the first published American textbook (1688). It served as a first-grade reader in U.S. public schools for nearly 150 years. Horton, who successfully championed a law last year to allow the posting in schools of the national motto, “In God We Trust” (which received … [Read more...]