It is likely constitutional for Kentucky to mandate that all public K-12 classrooms display a copy of the Christian Ten Commandments, the state's Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman wrote in a nonbinding opinion published last week.

Coleman also said placing a display of the same Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds would likely pass constitutional muster.

“The Commonwealth has considerable latitude in deciding whether and how to draw attention to the historical significance and influence of the Ten Commandments without offending the Establishment Clause,” Coleman wrote in the opinion.

The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or unduly favoring one religion over another.

Coleman added that requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in all classrooms would be constitutional if the manner and context of the displays lack a plainly religious purpose “but rather serve to highlight the ‘undeniable historical meaning’ of the text.”

Neither of these questions were posed to the first-term attorney general in a vacuum. Both are being pushed via legislation originating in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

Two bills in the House revolve around the Ten Commandments in public schools.

Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, has filed House Bill 65, which would require the commandments to be posted in all K-12 classrooms. It’s similar to a law recently passed in Louisiana, except it requires the document displaying the Christian tenets to be bigger; it requires them to be displayed 16-by-20 inches compared to 11-by-14 in the Pelican State.

A federal judge recently blocked that Louisiana law, citing its “overtly religious” nature and calling it “unconstitutional on its face.” Coleman later led a multi-state conservative coalition in support of the law.

As opposed to requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in certain places, House Bill 116 from Rep. Richard White, R-Morehead, would empower school boards to allow the posting or reading of the commandments in various school settings.

Coleman’s opinion was primarily directed at the concept behind Calloway’s bill, tackling the question of whether it would be allowable for the state to require posting the commandments.

Rep. Shane Baker, R-Somerset, also recently passed House Joint Resolution 15 out of the House, which would direct the state to return a granite Ten Commandments monument to the Capitol grounds that was originally gifted in 1971.

Coleman determined that such a move “likely would not violate the Establishment Clause.”

The opinion was requested by Louisville area attorney Clinton Elliott on behalf of a majority of the state’s legislative Republican caucuses as well as former Democratic legislative leaders.

One Democrat, Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, joined her GOP colleagues.

Also seeking the opinion were social conservative Democratic husband and wife duo Tom and Claudia Riner, the latter of whom filed a similar bill to Calloway’s in the 1970s when she served in the House.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Claudia Riner’s bill unconstitutional in 1980.

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