The bills grew out of a movement sparked by conservative lawmakers across the nation following the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Such violence occurs, proponents of the legislation argue, partly because schools have been so thoroughly secularized in recent decades. Posting the commandments, they say, would be a symbolic step back toward morality. If a school posted the biblical admonitions along with the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence, it would not be subject to the Supreme Court ruling, the bill's sponsors contend. Bills employing a similar strategy are pending before state legislatures in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
Some states are bolder.
The bill was approved by a Senate committee last week. Georgia is considering the most punitive bill, which would cut off funding to any public school that does not post the Ten Commandments. Generally, however, the most extreme components of such bills have been weakened as passage neared. The Indiana bill started out mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted, then took its current form, allowing but not requiring a posting with other historical documents. Even in this form, however, its constitutionality could hinge on exactly which documents schools choose for a historical display, civil libertarians said.