by Jorge Gomez • 3 minutes
First Liberty, the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) and Patriot Mobile are teaming up to restore faith and religious freedom in the Bayou State.
The cell-phone carrier recently made a donation that will provide Ten Commandments displays to 3,000 classrooms in Louisiana—at no cost to the taxpayer.
Last year, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law (H.B. 71) that requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments. As part of First Liberty’s Restoring Faith in America initiative, our legal experts played a role in helping the bill reach the governor’s desk.
“We are excited that Patriot Mobile supports the efforts to post the Ten Commandments in schools around the state of Louisiana,” said Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO and Chief Counsel for First Liberty. “Displaying the Ten Commandments is a longstanding national tradition in buildings throughout the nation’s capital as a symbol of law and moral conduct with both religious and secular significance.”
“Our Founding Fathers relied on the Ten Commandments as foundational guiding principles for organizing our Constitutional Republic,” said Jenny Story, Chief Operating Officer for Patriot Mobile. “We believe this project reminds students that Americans’ rights come from God, not the government.”
“It is our priority to support and defend our God-given rights and freedoms,” Story added. “This has been our mission from the very beginning of our company.”
The Louisiana Family Forum launched a project to raise funds to help bring the Ten Commandments to schools in their state.
“The contribution from Patriot Mobile will go a long way in helping us achieve one of our primary objectives: to introduce the next generation of leaders to the origin of western civilization, authentic world history and the foundation America’s founders trusted to define high moral character,” said Gene Mills, president of LFF. “Our history unmistakably teaches us that the Ten Commandments were widely displayed in schools for the first century of our nation.”
Restoring Faith in America is a national movement to empower people of faith as they express their beliefs publicly without fear of government obstruction. Because of multiple landmark victories First Liberty has secured at the U.S. Supreme Court, Americans now have more religious liberty than they’ve had over the past 50 years. Many legal precedents that once silenced religious expression have been overturned.
With this seismic change in religious freedom law, states—and individual Americans—are taking action to bring religious expression back to the public square. Prayer is returning to public schools. Religious symbols and historic monuments that were taken down are now being restored. Similar to Louisiana, state legislatures across the country are passing laws to strengthen religious liberty protections for their citizens.
While there is much to celebrate, the fight for religious freedom in America is far from over. In fact, new attacks have already begun.
Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law is currently being challenged in court by the ACLU.
Attorney General Liz Murrill is leading the effort to defend Louisiana’s law, arguing that it is constitutional.
“As the Supreme Court has recognized, the Ten Commandments have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system,” Murril said. “Our Ten Commandments brief argues that a lawsuit filed by the ACLU is foreclosed on procedural grounds by binding 5th Circuit and Supreme Court precedent.”
“Because the ACLU cannot carry their burden to show that the Ten Commandments law is unconstitutional in all its applications, this lawsuit must be dismissed,” Murrill added. “I am proud to defend the law, and I very much look forward to seeing the ACLU in court.”
Murrill’s office published guidance to help school district and officials implement the law. She also expressed her commitment to represent schools and statewide officials if they are sued for complying.
The Attorney General’s guidance specifically points to First Liberty’s landmark Supreme Court victories in our Coach Kennedy and Bladensburg Peace Cross cases, in which the Court overturned decades of bad precedent that caused many historic religious symbols to be scrubbed from the public square.
Moving forward, the Court set a precedent protecting religious displays on government property, making it clear that “the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and understandings.’”
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