Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed a bill mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms on June 19. Americans United and its allies were ready: That same day, we announced we’d see him in court.
The lawsuit was filed yesterday by Americans United, the American Civil Liberties Union (both the national office and its Louisiana affiliate) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation with pro bono counsel Simpson Thacher Bartlett LLP. We represent nine Louisiana families from various religious and nonreligious traditions who object to a state-mandated version of the Ten Commandments being forced on their children.
Media interest has been intense. In the Communications Department, our inboxes exploded as reporters reached out, wanting to get AU’s comments. We had some reporters contact us from overseas, and AU President and CEO Rachel Laser even appeared on a radio show hosted by Todd Starnes, a former Fox News figure whose views, to put it mildly, don’t jibe with Americans United’s.
Laser and other members of the AU staff have spent the past several days fielding requests for media interviews, and my colleagues have worked overtime to get the word out about the lawsuit. Here are some of the highlights:
-Laser deftly outlined the problems with the law on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut with Joy Reid.”
-This Associated Press story appeared in newspapers and news sites nationwide.
-A New York Times story put the law in context, noting that it’s part of a larger Christian Nationalist agenda.
-In this USA Today opinion column, Chris Brennan warned, “This has nothing to do with children or education and everything to do with rolling back constitutional protection of and from religion.”
–KLFY-TV in Lafayette, La., provides a good example of how the story is playing locally.
-AU’s media relations manager, did two interviews with Spanish-language media – Univision and Voz de America. This was a first for Americans United! (We don’t have links, unfortunately.)
-Reuters, a news service with a global reach, covered the case here.
-Two iconic American magazines, Forbes and Newsweek, provided coverage.
There were many other stories, and with the lawsuit being officially filed yesterday, we know there’s more to come.
Photo: MSNBC’s Reid interviews AU’s Laser
