When you mix religion and politics, you get politics.
Louisiana just passed a law to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, and critics have already raised the alarm about the violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Civil Liberties groups are already challenging the law.
Many critics have pointed out the irony of a legislature that has worked hard to end indoctrination in classroom seems intent on installing some indoctrination of their own.
But there’s another troubling layer to this that highlights the danger of eliminating the wall between church and state.
When you mix religion and politics, the old saw goes, you get politics.
Writing for CNN, Eli Federman argues that by putting the Ten Commandments on an equal footing with such documents as the Mayflower Compact secularizes the commandments. The law “harms religion by undermining the commandments’ sanctity.”
The law attempts to argue that the Ten Commandments are a crucial and foundational part of United States history, and critics are rightly concerned that the history taught to students may be altered to make the decalogue fit.
