Reading and watching the recent news on Louisiana’s Ten Commandments bill requiring the Old Testament laws to be posted in all public schools, I’m saddened but not surprised. Born in Shreveport and mostly raised in New Orleans, I also lived in Thibodeaux and Baton Rouge. Raised in a Christian family, I received eight years of Catholic schooling, where the Ten Commandments were posted and often discussed.
I took the ACT three times before scoring a 15, the minimum required for a Louisiana university. Remedial classes for this low score were mandatory. Thankfully, I wasn’t aware that the majority of U.S. students required to take college remedial classes never graduate. Was I lacking curiosity, a desire to learn or rational thinking skills? I think not. Instead, I mostly lacked a quality precollege education.
Watching state Rep. Dodie Horton (R-Haughton), the sponsor of the Ten Commandments bill, I’m sickened by her hubris, obvious extremist agenda and what appears to be more concern for her personal religious beliefs than her constituents. Reading about Horton and her 29 colleagues who voted to post the ancient religious rules in public schools, a remark by James Baldwin, quoting a line from a 1964 song by Tina and Ike Turner, comes to mind: “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”
Riffing off this quote, as a native of the Bayou State, I can’t believe what these zealous legislators are pushing, mainly because their token religious agenda does not represent the state’s actual disregard for protecting human life. The state is ranked 49th in the nation for child well-being (Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation). Children in the state are poorly educated (49th in education) and receive little health care (preventable hospital admissions are 27% higher in Louisiana than the national average). Further, the state is among the highest in infant mortality, childhood obesity and lack of library visits. Louisiana also has the second highest sexually transmitted infection rates and the third highest teen pregnancies in the nation — thanks to pushing abstinence programs over sex education.
Louisiana women have high rates of poverty, low life expectancy, comparatively little education and the worst working conditions for women in the nation, including a lack of childcare. Abortion is illegal in cases of incest and rape and even when children become pregnant (often a result of incest). Not surprisingly, one in five residents live in extreme poverty. In short, Louisiana, the third most religious state in the nation, is at the bottom of the barrel in opportunity and quality of life. Instead of helping human beings thrive, too many state legislators are catering to the anti-life ideological arrogance of White Christian Nationalism as reflected in this Ten Commandments bill.
Constitutional church-state separation precludes the legislating of religious ideology and protects religious freedom for all equally, with no exceptions. Using one’s religious faith to harm others is unethical and often goes against the very tenets of the faith they are trying to promote. We cannot back away from extremists cloaking their hateful ideology in faith and allow them to exclude others based on religion, ethnicity, social class, gender or way of life.
Many students attend religious schools, receive a solid education and accomplish the American Dream, as do children educated in public schools.
There is no data showing the Ten Commandments improve GPAs, lifelong success or morality. Therefore, in my view, we are witnessing hypocrisy from the state legislature, from lawmakers who appear to care more about ideology than education.
I do not blame my Catholic education for my low ACT.
However, had more teachers at my Catholic schools been less like many of the current lawmakers in the Louisiana legislature and cared more about how I turned out scholastically than ideologically, then perhaps I might have been a better student.
Or perhaps more like our son, who at age 12 scored a 21 on his practice ACT at his secular school in which the Ten Commandments, were notably absent.