The governor of Louisiana just signed a law that will require all public classrooms in the state — from kindergarten to universities — to post the Ten Commandments “on a poster or framed document at least 11 inches by 14 inches … in easily readable font.”

For the first time since Reconstruction, Louisiana has a Republican governor and Republican supermajorities in both houses of the legislature. Every major elected office in the state government is held by a Republican. In 2020, the state went for Trump over Biden by more than 18 points. This is MAGA land. The Ten Commandments law follows a series of other Trump-inspired measures in Baton Rouge like permitting state law enforcement officers to arrest and jail suspected migrants, allowing permitless carry for guns and classifying abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances.

This Ten Commandments law is a chin-scratcher though. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a big fan of the Decalogue. But I thought the MAGA view was that, at a time like this, with liberals and progressives about to destroy the USA, we can’t afford the luxury of morality. Isn’t that what Evangelicals who’ve embraced Trump and all his works tell themselves?

And yet, here is the Louisiana legislature explaining the importance of morality to the proper functioning of government. The law’s text quotes James Madison: “History records that James Madison, the fourth President of the United States of America, stated that ‘(w)e have staked the whole future of our new nation … upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.'”

Except, whoops, James Madison never wrote those words. The MAGA legislators were duped by a debunked book called “The Myth of Separation.”

Never mind. The important thing is that Louisiana Republicans are keen to associate themselves with Biblical morality.

OK, then. How does Donald Trump measure up?

Let’s start with the first commandment, which, if I may paraphrase, amounts to “One, and only one, God.” So if you glorify and sacralize a person, as many in the GOP do, you are not obeying the first commandment. The offense is worse if the person you worship is yourself. Oh-for-one.

The second commandment forbids idol worship. See commandment one above. Oh-for-two.

In the third commandment, the Lord forbids taking his Name in vain. Trump uses the term “goddam” regularly, including in front of Christian audiences. But they forgive him. Oh-for-Let’s see, the fourth commandment requires that we remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Trump and the MAGAites fail this test, but this one is complicated by a couple thousand years of differing interpretations among Christians and Jews, so let’s call this an incomplete.