Louisiana’s attorney general decided the best way to help protect kids from COVID-19 was ... to coach parents on how to get around the state’s indoor mask mandate. State Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, published a sample letter parents could use to claim “seriously held religious beliefs” exempted their child from wearing a mask at school. He posted the letter on his Facebook page on Aug. 3, a day after Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards reinstituted an indoor mask mandate for anyone older than 5. “Louisiana is not governed by a dictatorship. The question is: ‘who gets to determine the healthcare choices for you and your child?’ In a free society, the answer is the citizen — not the state,” Landry wrote on Facebook. Edwards blasted Landry’s defiance, claiming he was just trying to keep kids safe.
