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Louisiana becomes first state to require that Ten Commandments be displayed in public classrooms
Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday.
The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” be required in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities. Although the bill did not receive final approval from Landry, the time for gubernatorial action —to sign or veto the bill— has lapsed.
Opponents question the law’s constitutionality, warning that lawsuits are likely to follow. Proponents say the purpose of the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance. In the law’s language, the Ten Commandments are described as “foundational documents of our state and national government.”
In April, State Senator Royce Duplessis told CBS affiliate WWL-TV that he opposed the legislation. “It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen,” he said. “I think we are going to likely lose in court.”
Duplessis told the station that it’s only a matter of time before someone sues the state.
“That’s why we have a separation of church and state,” said Duplessis, who is a Democrat. “We learned the 10 Commandments when we went to Sunday school. As I said on the Senate floor, if you want your kids to learn the Ten Commandments, you can take them to church.”
The displays, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025.
The posters would be paid for through donations. State funds will not be used to implement the mandate, according to the legislation. The law also “authorizes” but does not require the display of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance in K-12 public schools.
State House Representative Dodie Horton is the author of the bill. In April, she defended it before the House, saying the Ten Commandments are the basis of all laws in Louisiana, WWL-TV reported.
“I hope and I pray that Louisiana is the first state to allow moral code to be placed back in the classrooms,” Horton said. “Since I was in kindergarten [at a private school], it was always on the wall. I learned there was a God, and I knew to honor him and his laws.”
Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However, with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state besides Louisiana has had success in making the bills law.
Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The high court found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.
Louisiana’s controversial law, in a state ensconced in the Bible Belt, comes during a new era of conservative leadership in the state under Landry, who replaced two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January.
The GOP also has a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature, and Republicans hold every statewide elected position, paving the way for lawmakers to push through a conservative agenda during the legislative session that concluded earlier this month.
Nearly lost forever, a family heirloom painting turned out to be a Texas masterpiece and sold for six figures at Dallas-based auction house last week.
According to Heritage Auctions, the painting of Texas bluebonnets was loaded onto a trailer with donations bound for Goodwill, all belongings of a woman who was moving to the West Coast for retirement.
She had received it as a gift from an extended family member in Texas to commemorate her birth in 1922, according to the auction house. At the last minute, the woman decided “it was too pretty to surrender,” and she kept it.
After the woman died, her daughter kept the painting on display in her own home near Tacoma, Washington.
For years, no one in the family realized the artwork was an original by “the father of Texas painting,” Julian Onderdonk. The family recently made the discovery and decided to put it up for auction “to someone who will genuinely appreciate it,” the original owner’s grandson told Heritage Auctions.
On June 29, the painting, named “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio” sold for $112,500. In the same auction, two other Onderdonk paintings sold for $106,250 and $93,750, respectively.
Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Who was Julian Onderdonk?
Onderdonk was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1882 and showed artistic talent at a young age, according to the Texas Historical Society. He began teaching art as a teenager and later moved to New York City to study and teach.
In 1906, Onderdonk took a seasonal job organizing art exhibitions at the Dallas State Fair, now known as the State Fair of Texas. In 1909, he moved his family back to Texas, eventually taking an interest in painting bluebonnets and other Texas landscapes.
Onderdonk painted “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio,” in 1921. He died the next year, at the peak of his success.
His work is on display at several museums, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Former President George W. Bush had several Onderdonk works in the White House during his administration, according to the historical society.
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Watch Live: Biden awards Medal of Honor to 2 Union soldiers who hijacked train behind enemy lines
Washington — President Biden is awarding posthumous Medals of Honor on Wednesday to two Army privates who were a part of a plot to hijack a train and destroy Confederate infrastructure during the Civil War.
The president will honor Philip Shadrach and George Wilson for their “gallantry and intrepidity” in carrying out a covert operation called the “Great Locomotive Chase,” which played out 200 miles behind Confederate lines in Georgia in 1862, the White House said.
“In one of the earliest special operations in U.S. Army history, Union Soldiers dressed as civilians infiltrated the Confederacy, hijacked a train in Georgia and drove it north for 87 miles, destroying enemy infrastructure along the way. During what later became known as the Great Locomotive Chase, six of the Union participants became the Army’s first recipients of the newly created Medal of Honor,” a White House official said.
The operation was hatched by James Andrews, a Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout. He proposed penetrating the Confederacy with the goal of degrading their railway and communications lines to cut off Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Confederate supplies and reinforcements.
Andrews, together with 23 other men, infiltrated the South in small groups, coming together north of Atlanta. On April 12, 1862, 22 of the men commandeered a locomotive called The General and ventured north, tearing up railroad tracks and cutting telegraph wires as they went. The men became known as the Andrews’ Raiders.
Shadrach, originally from Pennsylvania and orphaned at a young age, was just 21 when he volunteered for the mission. On Sept. 20, 1861, he left home and enlisted in a Union Army Ohio Infantry Regiment. Wilson, born in Ohio, was a journeyman shoemaker before he enlisted in a Union Army’s Ohio Volunteer Infantry in 1861. He also volunteered for the Andrews’ Raid.
After the operation, both men were captured, convicted as spies and hanged.
“It is unknown why Private Shadrach and Private Wilson were not originally recommended for the Medal of Honor,” a White House official said. “Both were deserving in 1863, and on July 3, 2024, by order of the President of the United States both will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.”
The ceremony comes as questions mount over Mr. Biden’s future as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, with his public appearances under intense scrutiny following his halting performance at last week’s presidential debate. After the Medal of Honor ceremony, the president is meeting with Democratic governors to address their concerns and chart his path forward.
How to watch Biden present the Medal of Honor
- What: President Biden awards the Medal of Honor
- Date: July 3, 2024
- Time: 4:45 p.m. ET
- Location: White House
- Online stream: Live on CBS News in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device.
