Bible and Ten Commandments okay in Georgia.

On April 20, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed one bill that permits the state's high schools to offer elective courses on the Bible and another that allows display of the Ten Commandments at courthouses. Local school districts will decide whether to teach the Bible courses.

A report about the legislation written by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools expressed approval of the fact that the Georgia legislature "decided properly to determine that the Old and New Testaments were to be the text of any elective Bible curriculum taught in Georgia public schools." Competing legislation that was defeated would have mandated "nonsectarian, non-religious academic study" of the Bible using a textbook called The Bible and Its Influence, published by the Bible Literacy Project. The defeated proposal would not have used the Bible as part of its curriculum. According to an AP report, the new law requires that the courses be taught "in an objective and non-devotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students."

The state's new Ten Commandments law was drafted in response to a decision by a federal judge last July, who ordered a display of the commandments in the Barrow County Courthouse to be removed. The new law was specifically written to survive future constitutional challenges.