Jun. 23—Conservative politicians in Louisiana are determined to be just as stubborn and foolish as those in one small town in New Mexico.
Louisiana recently enacted 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 whacko District Attorney Jim Garrison took 10 giant steps backward with this legislation.
Louisiana lawmakers hope to spin their mandate for Christianity in classrooms by claiming they are highlighting a historical document rather than a religious one.
Years of litigation at enormous expense are ahead. Public money that should be spent on laboratories, improved internet access and retaining good teachers might end up compensating 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 its City Hall.
Most residents of Bloomfield applauded that decision by the City Council. But at least a few dozen objected publicly, saying government has no business favoring one religion over others. The ACLU took the case on behalf of the town’s underdogs, and its attorneys proved to be formidable.
A U.S. District Court judge and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Bloomfield violated the constitution by displaying the 3,400-pound religious monument on city property.
Bloomfield strung out the legal skirmishing until the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2018. With that, the town’s last possible avenue of appeal was closed.
Fallout from the case proved costly. Bloomfield, population 7,300, owed the ACLU $700,000 to cover its legal fees. The city solicited private donations to help pay down the debt.
As a Bloomfield city councilor, Kevin Mauzy, had used his platform to advocate for displaying the privately financed Ten Commandments monument on public property. In a weekend interview, I asked Mauzy if he had any regrets about a decision that entangled his town in courtroom combat.
“No, not at all. You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything,” he said.
Asked why his side lost the case, Mauzy said: “I think people can’t read. There’s nothing in the Constitution about separation of church and state.”
Then-U.S. District Court Judge James Parker appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan, held a different view. Parker ruled that the Constitution prohibited Bloomfield’s religious display.
“In view of 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. “Its conduct in authorizing the continued display of the monument on City property had the primary or principal effect of endorsing religion.”
Mauzy told me the Ten Commandments monument was merely one of four on city property devoted to U.S. history. What he neglected to mention was the other three monuments — featuring the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights — were established after the ACLU sued Bloomfield over its display of the Ten Commandments.
No one disputed that President Abraham Lincoln’s speech in a shattered town during the Civil War was historical. Bloomfield’s display of the Ten Commandments wasn’t 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 jousting would have been avoided if the monument had been placed on religious grounds in the first place.
Santa Fe is far more liberal than Bloomfield. In an oddity, a 6-foot-tall granite tablet of the Ten Commandments is displayed 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 objections mainly from the Freedom from Religion Foundation based in Madison, Wis.
Obscurity has shielded Santa Fe’s monument of the Ten Commandments from lawsuits. In Louisiana, the Republican-controlled Legislature has made certain to be ostentatious with its law to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
Many of the Louisiana lawmakers who claim they worry about crowded court dockets and preserving local control of schools have revealed themselves. Eager to instigate 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.
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