Christians and Jews believe in the Ten Commandments — just not necessarily the version that will hang in every public school and state-funded college classroom in Louisiana.

The required text prescribed in the new law and used on many monuments around the United States is a condensed version of the Scripture passage in Exodus containing the commandments. It has ties to “The Ten Commandments” movie from 1956, and it’s a variation of a version commonly associated with Protestants.

That’s one of the issues related to religious freedom and separation of church and state being raised over this mandate, which was swiftly followed by a lawsuit.

“H.B. 71 is not neutral with respect to religion,” according to the legal complaint filed June 24 by Louisiana clergy, public school parents and civil liberties groups. “It requires a specific, state-approved version of that scripture to be posted, taking sides on theological questions regarding the correct content and meaning of the Decalogue.”

It’s also part of a bigger picture. The new law signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on June 19 is not only part of a wave of efforts by GOP-led states to target public schools, it’s also one of the latest conservative Christian victories in the long-standing fight over the role of religion in public life.

Another example came this week in Oklahoma, where the Republican state school superintendent ordered public schools to incorporate the Bible into lessons for grades 5 through 12. In both states, the government leaders argued the historical significance of the religious text was justification enough for use in public schools.

“This cause has persisted because conservative partisans believe it’s a way to mobilize their base,” said Kevin M. Kruse, author of “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America” and a history professor at Princeton University. He disputes the historical reasoning being used in Louisiana.

“This isn’t about uniting the people of (Landry’s) state; it’s about trying to divide them with a culture war issue that he thinks will win his side votes.”

Is there only one version of the Ten Commandments?

The Ten Commandments come from Jewish and Christian Scripture, which says there are 10 of them but doesn’t number them specifically. Catholics, Jews and Protestants typically order them differently, and the phrasing can change depending on which Bible translation is used or what part of Scripture they are pulled from.

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses” who got the commandments from God, said Landry during the signing ceremony at a Catholic school. The governor also is Catholic.

What version is Louisiana using in its public schools?

No Bible translation is named, but the Ten Commandments in the Louisiana law appears to be a variation on the King James Bible version and listed in the order commonly used by Protestants.

Translated in 17th century England from biblical languages, the King James version was for centuries the standard Bible used by evangelicals and other Protestants, even though many today use more modern translations. It is still the go-to translation for some worshippers.

The version in the Louisiana law matches the wording on the Ten Commandments monolith that stands outside of the Texas State Capitol in Austin. It was given to the state in 1961 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a more than 125-year-old, Ohio-based service organization with thousands of members. In 2005, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled it did not violate the constitution and could stay.

The Eagles did not respond to The Associated Press’s request for comment, but the organization notes on its website that it distributed about 10,000 Ten Commandments plaques in 1954. The organization also partnered with the creators of “The Ten Commandments” to market the film, spreading public displays of the list around the country, according to Kruse, who wrote about the relationship in his book “One Nation Under God.”

“It’s significant that the Louisiana law uses the same text created for ‘The Ten Commandments’ movie promotions by the Fraternal Order of Eagles and Paramount Pictures because it reminds us that this text isn’t one found in any Bible and isn’t one used by any religious faith,” Kruse said via email. “Instead, it’s a text that was crafted by secular political actors in the 1950s for their own ends.”

What concerns are being raised about this version?

Although white evangelical Protestants and many white Catholics unite behind conservative politics today, the King James Bible has been used historically in strategically anti-Catholic ways, including amid the anti-Catholic sentiment in late 19th and early 20th centuries, said Robert Jones. He is president of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy.”

The Louisiana law contains plenty of evidence, including the specific Bible translation used, that the real intent is to privilege a particular expression of Christianity, Jones said.

“What it is really symbolizing is an evangelical Christian stamp on the space,” he said. “It is less about the ideas and more about its use as a symbol, a totem, that marks territory for a particular religious tradition.”

This version is an odd choice, Kruse said, but he thinks it speaks more to how political leaders view religion.

“Decades ago, we would have seen this as a triumph of Protestantism in a deeply Catholic state, but I think its adoption today just shows how little the political leaders of the state actually care about the substance of religion,” Kruse said.

For Benjamin Marsh, a North Carolina pastor watching the Louisiana law, his primary concern is people’s spiritual formation so altering the Ten Commandments is worrisome to him.

“The problem with changing the text of the Ten Commandments is you rob the spiritual implications of the actual biblical text. So you’re giving some vague likeness to the Ten Commandments that isn’t the real thing,” said Marsh. He leads First Alliance Church Winston-Salem, which is part of a conservative evangelical denomination.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, drew cheers when he invoked the new law on June 22 while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington.

“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said during the Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

How exactly will the Ten Commandments read on the classroom displays?

The Ten Commandments I AM the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

South Louisianans may be seeing some fuzzy, white caterpillars in their yards or gardens recently. They are called fall webworms and Louisiana is experiencing a spike in their population, making them more noticeable this year.

Louisianans will meet five generations of these guys this year.

They first made their appearance in mid-March, and so far, the second generation is out as well as the beginning of the third. They are estimated to stay around through the end of the summer.

“They are not poisonous or venomous. They do not sting, and as far as we know, their pest status primarily comes from the fact that they can feed on a lot of different plants, primarily trees and shrubs,” said Aaron Ashbrook, assistant professor at the LSU Department of Entomology.

The only threat they pose to humans or animals is the amount of your garden they munch on.

“Fall webworms are polyphagous, which means they are able to feed on many different plants,” said Ashbrook. “They actually will feed upon over 400 species of plants. And so they don’t necessarily have a preference. It’s just what is a good host for them.”

In urban areas, they rely on trees for shade and temperature regulation. An excess of fall webworms can result in less shade when they feed on trees, which in some cases causes hotter temperatures.

“Fall webworms can be very problematic in production settings where fruits and nuts are being grown. They can defoliate the trees, and that will impact the ability for those trees to produce fruit and nuts,” said Ashbrook.

There are actually two types, or morphs, of the fall webworms. The black-headed morph, the ones being seeing right now, are white with a black head, and in their adult form, they are fully white moths. The second type of webworm is the red-headed morph. They have a red and orange color, and in their adult form, they are white and spotted.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — On June 24, 2022, Louisiana’s strict abortion ban became the law of the land. Around that same time, Kaitlyn Joshua was preparing to be a mother again.

“My daughter is now five but at the time she was three, almost four,” Joshua explained. “And we were just kinda thinking it would be a perfect time to add a baby and we were really excited to do that.”

But all that excitement turned into endless doctor visits, confusion and pain.

“My provider’s office stated that they wouldn’t be able to see me, until the 12-week mark,” Joshua said. “The pain that I was experiencing was worse than what I had experienced delivering my daughter.”

Joshua thought she was having a miscarriage, but medical providers and doctors were too afraid to diagnose or treat her.

“I asked her, so is this for sure a miscarriage, like am I not going to be able to continue this pregnancy. She said I’m not sure and I can’t really tell you that in this moment, but I am sending you home with prayers,” said Joshua.

Joshua had no choice but to wait until the miscarriage passed. She says if the law had been different, she would have had access to an abortion. The same procedure often used during miscarriages.

Latoya Harris says she looks at maternal health differently as a Black woman. She says she almost didn’t make it out of the delivery room alive. According to Harris, she said she was given an epidural that didn’t work. She kept telling doctors that something wasn’t right.

“After losing so much blood, I passed out and I woke up to just wondering did I code or did I have to be revived,” Harris asked.

But she pulled through and so did her baby girl. Harris and Joshua are not only mothers with survival stories, but they also represent a statistic. According to the CDC, Black women have the highest rates of pregnancy complications in the U.S.

These women are thankful to be alive, knowing they could have been among the thousands of Black women who die during childbirth.

“They are often times living on lower incomes than their white counterparts and they are also facing implicit or even sometimes explicit racial bias within the health care system,” said Michelle Erenberg, executive director of Lift Louisiana.

“There just needs to be more health care during the pregnancy that’s provided to them,” said Sarah Zagorski from Pro Life Louisiana. “As well as support with more information about the risks that could be involved and those sorts of things, that can help them have a safe birth.”

The CDC says Black women have the highest maternal death rate in the country and in Louisiana.

“There’s a lot of existing health disparities that exist already along racial lines in the state of Louisiana. Black women are less likely to be insured,” Erenberg explained.

“We know that there are women who become pregnant where they don’t have doctor visits and they don’t have access to those things,” said Zagorski.

Now that abortion access is prohibited in the state, pro-choice advocates believe the number of Black women who die during pregnancy will go up, because they will be forced to carry pregnancies to term.

As of 2019, a CDC report found about 40% of women who receive abortions are Black. That report cites Black women are more likely to live in poverty. The National Institute of Health says Black women are more likely to live in contraceptive deserts.

According to the following non-profits, including Advocates for Youth, Black Girls Equity Alliance and Giving Compass, Black women often face barriers in accessing proper sex education.

A study done by the National Black Women’s Justice Institute found that Black women experience high rates of sexual violence. Black women also have the highest rate of unwanted pregnancies.

“We have lawmakers, not doctors that are making these policy decisions, it’s actually adding to those structures of disparity,” Erenberg explained. “The problem is not going to get any better, it’s only going to make the problem worse”

“There’s more that can be done to improve maternal health outcomes,” Zagorski said. “That’s something we are working to do by providing funding to abortion alternatives in the legislature.”

But many, like Joshua, doesn’t think lawmakers want to fix the disparity.

“It doesn’t fit the narrative of the pro-life movement to address the health care disparities,” Joshua said. “It’s so much cuter to create a study than it is to actually throw dollars at an entire community addressing a maternity care desert or sex education in schools.”

“Educating youth, providing support to pregnancy care centers and helping with funding for those resources, that’s our whole mission,” Zagorski explained. “It’s not only about the unborn child, it’s about caring for the mother as well. We want to help them both.”

Until lawmakers do something about it, Joshua believes there will be more stories like hers and Harris’.

“It’s all about control. It’s all about making sure that women understand our place,” Joshua said.

“By God’s grace, he protected me,” Harris said. “Our lives definitely matter.”

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