On January 23rd Louisiana’s Attorney General will make oral arguments in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals defending both the State’s new law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments and Religious Liberty (under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution). Legal proceedings would not have been necessary sixty years ago, but today Marxists have infiltrated government, education, media, and even our churches and seminaries as they miseducate America in their revolt against God. Socialism and Marxism are the preliminary stages of Communism— which “should be understood as an evil specter forged by hate and degeneracy and use ideas like “separation of church and state” to marginalize and sabotage religion and education.”
Religious Liberty was protected in the Constitution under the First Amendment which, in part, states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Translation, the Federal Government is prohibited from infringing on Religious Liberty. However, secular laws were passed in the 1960s and 70s that kicked God and the Bible out of our public schools under a misinterpretation that required “separation of church and state.” This misinterpretation was corrected by the Supreme Court in its 2022 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton which said that the test of compliance with the First Amendment is whether it’s consistent with the country’s “original meaning and history.” Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said that forbidding teachers from engaging in any religious speech is “suppressing religious liberty rather than protecting it.” One would think that this would be the end of the story!
However, in November a federal judge declared the Louisiana Ten Commandment mandate unconstitutional while apparently ignoring the 2022 Supreme Court ruling— forcing Louisiana to appeal the decision. The case will center on the “original meaning and history” of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1791) and will be looking at the Declaration of Independence (1776), and President George Washington’s First Inaugural Address in 1789 in which he stated “No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand more than the People of the United States. Every step by which they became an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency”, and suggested the Nation should have “pious gratitude along with humble anticipation of future blessings.”
Most profound in confi rming our Founders “original meaning” of Religious Liberty, however, would be Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796 in which he warned that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” for political prosperity, cautioning against assuming “that morality can be maintained without religion”, followed by our second President, John Adams, who wrote: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Amen!!
Steve Gardes is a Certifi ed Public Accountant (CPA) and Certifi ed Valuation Analyst (CVA) with over 40 years of public accounting experience.
Steve Gardes
