Teaching the tablets

BEGINNING NEXT FALL, Utah public schools can teach the Ten Commandments in history class. Gov. Spencer Cox on March 20 signed a bill adding the Ten Commandments, as well as the Magna Carta, to a list of “historical documents and principles that school curricula and activities may include for a thorough study.” The list also includes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Mayflower Compact.

The new law allows schools to display the approved documents in classrooms and forbids “content-based censorship” of the material. The bill originally included a provision requiring framed displays of the Ten Commandments, but lawmakers removed it over concerns it might violate the Utah Constitution.

At least a dozen states, including North and South Dakota, currently allow the Decalogue to be displayed in classrooms. The practice was more widespread until 1980, when the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky statute that required conspicuous displays of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. In that case, Stone v. Graham, the court ruled that Kentucky’s requirement ran afoul of the establishment clause because the displays had a religious purpose. However, the ruling stated that “the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like.”

Subsequent rulings have carved out a place for states to allow, though not require, “passive” displays of the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents.

Accused get injustice in Pakistan

A court in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore sentenced a Muslim woman to life in prison on March 20 for burning pages of the Quran. Aasiya Bibi was arrested in 2021 after neighbors denounced her, according to government prosecutor Mohazib Awais. Bibi denied the charges and has the right to appeal. A Christian woman with the same name was acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan in 2019 after spending eight years on death row.

Pakistan’s stringent blasphemy laws prescribe punishments as strict as death for insulting Islam or its religious figures. The government has never executed someone for blasphemy, but mere accusations of blasphemy often kick off riots among the country’s roughly 96 percent Muslim population. Mobs have lynched dozens of accused before their trials. Critics say such accusations are sometimes used to settle personal scores. —E.R.