Will Sutton: I'm for the Ten Commandments, but not in our Louisiana classrooms

The idea of Louisiana being the first state in our nation to REQUIRE the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom in any school that receives state funding is fundamentally offensive.

I'm a Christian. I'm also a taxpayer.

I was raised in a home where the commandments meant something. I went to public and private schools where no one tried to rip that part of my home-built faith from me. We didn't have the commandments on the wall of my classrooms, and I turned out just fine.

So did some of my Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist friends.

Nevertheless, the Louisiana Legislature has passed House Bill 71, which would make ours the first state to mandate displaying the Ten Commandments in every classroom of every K-12 school and public university.

Ya heard me right.

Each and every classroom.

I've got several problems with this:

• It should be declared unconstitutional.
• It does not include people of all faiths or people with no faith.
• It cannot be enforced without controversy, and maybe violence.

Yet, a large majority of our state legislators want to see posters "no smaller than 11 inches by 14 inches" with the commandments as the "central focus."

A framed poster featuring Jesus Christ in a white, flowing robe with his palms faced forward as he looks down at the commandments in less-than-large print would violate the new law. So would an 11-by-14 poster with the commandments from a Roman Catholic Bible — because those commandments are numbered differently. 

The measure is specific. It mandates the following version exclusively:

"The Ten Commandments

I AM the LORD thy God.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

I may not be a lawyer, but I did master enough math to know how to count — and by all counts HB 71 enumerates Eleven Commandments. The last two cited above are generally combined into one in Protestant listings, but apparently not in the Book of Horton, as in state Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, who sponsored the bill.

Horton argued that the commandments are a “plumbline on which all American laws were formed" and therefore they deserve to be posted "for our children to see everything that God says is right and everything that he says is wrong."

In this instance, I agree with a joint statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Our public schools are not Sunday schools," it reads, "and students of all faiths — or no faith — should feel welcome in them."

Ironically, conservative Life Tabernacle Church Pastor Tony Spell told me that he likes the idea but feels that requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms would be "a slippery slope."

"I teach the Ten Commandments 24/7," Spell said. But, this law would lead to Muslims and other faiths wanting to add what's important to them, and he doesn't want to see that. "You can't discriminate," he said. "It's called equal protection of the law." The Muslim holy book, the Quran, mentions the commandments, but they aren't as important as in other faiths.

Dr. Jason Gaines knows a bit about the Ten Commandments. He has taught a Hebrew Bible and Ten Commandments course twice a year for a decade. Gaines, a professor in Jewish Studies at Tulane University, laughed when I asked how many different versions of the commandments exist.

The Hebrew Bible, aka the Old Testament, has at least three versions. Ditto for the Christian Bible — and there are various Bible editions.

As a matter of fact, Gaines told me, Jews don't call them commandments. They're the Decalogue, or Ten Sayings.

Christian and Jewish traditions teach that God delivered the commandments or sayings to Moses. Gaines said they were written in Hebrew during the early Iron Age for adult Jewish men. That's why honoring thy mother and father technically includes making their roof repairs.

Maybe, just maybe, we should ask our elected leaders, and each other, to follow whatever version of them we like best, rather than pontificate about them.