holding decisions of federal courts interpreting federal statutes are highly persuasive in interpreting state statutes patterned after those federal statutes
How later courts described this case
- holding decisions of federal courts interpreting federal statutes are highly persuasive in interpreting state statutes patterned after those federal statutes
- “The great similarity of the establishment clause of [the Louisiana] Constitution and that of the United States Constitution allows us to use the United States Supreme Court interpretations of the federal clause as an aid for interpreting our own.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
HAMLIN, Justice
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
Simply stated, as I see the situation under consideration, Act 223 of 1970, is an act providing for the purchase by the State of Louisiana of secular educational services from teachers employed by non-public schools.
There is nothing in the Constitution of Louisiana for the year 1921 that prohibits the enactment of such a statute or the purchase of such services.
This is not a statute respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; it does not give preference to or make any discrimination against any church, sect, or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship.
It is not to aid any church, sect or denomination of religion; it is not to aid any priest, preacher, minister or teacher of religion.
It does not provide for an appropriation of public funds to any private or sectarian school. It merely provides for a contract to purchase educational services, such contract to be entered into with the teacher individually.
As I interpret McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton 316 , 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), where a law is not prohibited by the Constitution and is really calculated to affect any of the objects entrusted to the government (the education of its children, as this one is), it is constitutional.
I respectfully dissent.