NEW ORLEANS - A year after a law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in Louisiana classrooms went into effect, there are still debates in court about whether the law is at all constitutional.

A federal court heard arguments over the constitutionality of the law after a three-judge panel of the court called the law "plainly unconstitutional" last year, but the state is defending its right to put what it calls historical texts in classrooms.

"You either read the Ten Commandments or your child is going to learn the criminal code," Governor Jeff Landry said.

When the law was passed in 2024, State Representative Dodie Horton said it was not meant to teach a particular religion to students, but that's exactly what plaintiffs argued Tuesday.

"We are saying that we must not insult the intelligence of the everyday American to suggest that we do not know that this is, in fact, indoctrination," Alanah Odoms Hebert, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said.

Hebert said the law, if enacted, could mold and shape students towards religious doctrine that may be different from the one their parents have chosen to teach at home.

Attorney General Liz Murrill disagrees, saying students aren't forced to read the Ten Commandments posters.

"Our whole point is this is a passive display," Murrill said. "The argument they are trying to make is that it is coercive. We don't think that it is."

In the courtroom, attorneys debated whether any religious texts should be allowed on classroom walls at all.

"Yes, there are limits," Murrill said. "We believe we are inside the limits."