The Ten Commandments in Louisiana Schools and the Future of the First Amendment

Louisiana recently enacted a law requiring that the text of the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public-school classroom. Almost immediately afterwards, the ACLU filed a lawsuit complaining that the regulation violated the First Amendment. Once, the ACLU would have had a near-airtight case, but a 2022 Supreme Court ruling has changed the way the First Amendment is applied in such instances, and this lawsuit will test the new doctrine. Michael A. Helfand explains that there are two reasons the law might still fail to pass muster:

First, in its most recent decisions, the current Supreme Court has been clear that government still cannot enact laws that are religiously coercive. . . . And at least in the past, the Supreme Court has construed the concept of religious coercion broadly, to . . . encompass laws that don’t quite force others to participate in a religious practice. For example, in 1992, the Supreme Court held that a religious prayer at a public-school graduation—technically a program where attendance is voluntary—violated principles of church-state separation because it constituted a form of “subtle pressure” on students to attend and participate.

Second, the court has also previously held that “denominational preference”—that is, enacting laws that prefer one religion over others—also violates the First Amendment. . . . Louisiana’s law explicitly chooses a version of the Ten Commandments that differs in text and emphasis from the version embraced by various Jewish and Christian denominations. Moreover, the very idea of privileging the Ten Commandments in the classroom might constitute a preference for the Judeo-Christian tradition over and above the traditions of other faith communities.

Read more at Jewish Telegraphic Agency

More about: American law, Freedom of Religion, Ten Commandments

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023