A federal appellate court is deliberating over whether or not red states can mandate posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in state classrooms was unconstitutional. State Attorney Liz Murrill (R) subsequently requested that the court re-hear the case en banc — with all 17 of the court’s judges. The appellate judges heard arguments in the case, along with a similar case in which Texas mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, on Tuesday.

Family Research Council President and former Louisiana legislator Tony Perkins attended the oral arguments and reported on Tuesday night’s episode of “Washington Watch” that he later spoke with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (R) and Murrill. “They were both very positive” about the outcome of the case, he shared. “We’re going into the 250th anniversary of our country. This is an organic document. This is a document upon which our legal system is built,” Perkins added of the Ten Commandments. He pointed to the American History Preservation Act, which he himself authored while in the Louisiana legislature, that allows any document referenced in the nation’s founding documents to be displayed in classrooms. “The Ten Commandments play such a key role in the founding of our nation. So again, I think the questioning really … leans toward being favorable toward the state of Louisiana,” he anticipated.

“The opposition against both” the Louisiana law and the Texas law “was based on this idea that this is somehow coercion. And it was quite interesting to watch the arguments,” Perkins recounted. “The solicitor general of Louisiana, Ben Aguiñaga, I thought, did an exceptional job. And you can sometimes … tell how it goes based upon the justices and their questioning. Ben drew a few questions, mostly from a couple of the liberals on the court, but the attorney, the counsel for the opponents of this, was peppered with questions,” he continued. “It was all over this whole issue of coercion. … [T]he counsel for the opponents of the statute said that if you’re posting the Ten Commandments in a public school classroom, you are turning that school into a church. That’s what he said.”

FRC filed an amicus brief in support of Louisiana’s case late last year. Perkins noted that the amicus brief was actually referenced in oral arguments Tuesday. “Our brief annihilates the argument of the other side, saying that this is coercion,” Perkins said. “Displaying the Ten Commandments in schools is constitutional because it does not coerce participation in a formal religious exercise,” FRC’s brief argued. “Under the original public meaning of the Establishment Clause, the relevant question in cases like this is whether the government has coerced individuals by force of law to participate in or otherwise support a formal religious exercise. A passive display of the Ten Commandments in a schoolroom is not a formal religious exercise,” the brief continued. “Neither element of the relevant establishment hallmark exists here, and Louisiana’s law is therefore easily constitutional.”

Perkins recounted that attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), arguing against Louisiana’s statute, noted the First Commandment — “I am the Lord thy God … Thou shalt not have strange gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-3) — and suggested that it could possibly be considered discriminatory against polytheistic families. “I was thinking, I looked up on the wall. You’ve got these ‘maximum seating size’ for a room from the fire marshal. I guess if you have that in a church, you could argue that that turns it into a state building by … allowing him to limit the number of people,” Perkins quipped. “You say, ‘Well, that’s for public safety.’ True. But what’s more important: public safety or the preservation of our country with an understanding of the basic values?”

Several of the court’s progressive-leaning judges asked the ACLU lawyer how teachers might have to respond to children who are unfamiliar with Scripture and the Ten Commandments, Perkins shared. “That’s exactly why we need them in the classroom, so that they could see them and then, on their own, explore, ask questions, because they are so fundamental to who we are as a people,” he continued. “That was one of the points the governor made at a press conference after the hearing today,” he added. “It’s fundamental to our Judeo-Christian foundation, and we cannot back away from these.”

“In fact, we need to double down so that we can teach the next generation what it is that made America exceptional,” Perkins insisted. “All this talk about America being great. America will never be great until it’s good. This is the source of America’s greatness, it is an alignment with these principles, these transcendent truths that our Founders recognized and built this country upon,” he continued. “The ability of our country to continue is based upon people being able to govern themselves, and that’s what the Ten Commandments [are] about, being able to govern ourselves under God. And if we can’t do that, we will not have a government big enough to do that,” Perkins added. “We have to govern ourselves.”