Legislators in North Dakota are deliberating a bill that would allow public schools to display the Ten Commandments.
The measure’s sponsor is Sen. Janne Myrdal, a Republican whose district includes several counties in the northeastern part of the state. Myrdal said she thinks it’s fine to post the Ten Commandments in schools because “no religion is offended by the Ten Commandments. None.”
Myrdal also dismissed concerns that the bill violates the separation of church and state because, she said, those words don’t appear in America’s founding documents. She went on to assert that “after we took prayer and the Ten Commandments out of the public school” teen pregnancy and crime rates rose.
The measure has passed both chambers of the North Dakota legislature and has been sent to Gov Doug Burgum (R), who is expected to sign it. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down public school displays of the Ten Commandments in a 1980 case called Stone v. Graham.
