Gov. Mike Easley has indicated he will sign a measure allowing public schools to display the Ten Commandments, which is unfortunate for anyone who believes that religious education — as opposed to religious indoctrination — should be part of every student’s course of study.

Easley should veto the bill — not because it goes too far, as some have argued, but because it doesn’t go far enough toward the stated intent.

All the bill’s advocates want, after all, is for students to have some knowledge of the role that religion — particularly Judeo-Christian religion — has played in our nation’s history. Here’s how a key supporter, Rep. Donald Davis of Erwin, has described it: “It is merely an attempt to give public school children a basic understanding of the standard that undergirds our legal system and moral code, which is the basis for our constitutional Republic. … There has been a concerted effort to rob our schoolchildren of an understanding of this country’s Judeo/Christian heritage.”

The measure’s sponsors also stress that the commandments are to be presented purely as a historic document and universal moral code, not as a sacred religious text (although a few misguided sects persist in viewing them that way).

The bill’s supporters have, of course, seized on a weakness in most public school curricula. Many students are woefully ignorant of the role religion has held in the history of our country, not to mention the history of the world around us.But after having identified this problem, legislators stumbled badly on the solution.

Posting the Ten Commandments on the wall won’t give students a deeper understanding of how they inform the secular institutions of our society. It will simply generate tricky questions for beleaguered teachers, who will have to explain how “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” relates to a moral code that doesn’t exalt one religion above another.

Given their sincere concern, it’s surprising that legislators didn’t offer schools more resources — or at least more flexibility — to solve the problem. What we need isn’t a Band-Aid approach that treats the commandments as the Cliffs Notes guide to better living, but rigorous and thorough study of religion, beginning at an early age.

How to squeeze that into a crowded schedule? A good place to start might be the requirement that schools provide two years of North Carolina history. Legislators previously have fended off attempts to revise the requirement. But, given their appreciation for religious studies, surely they wouldn’t object to having one year of North Carolina history — and one year dedicated to how religion has influenced the history of our country and our state.

Or perhaps, since state lawmakers have dropped the ball, there’s a solution at the local level. Since the county commission previously passed a resolution urging that schools post the Ten Commandments, it will now offer to fund religious facilitators who will go into the schools and, in a non-proselytizing, non-coercive atmosphere, give this subject the attention it truly deserves.

As it is, legislators have done a disservice to themselves. They have created the appearance that, rather than sincerely wanting to further knowledge of our religious heritage, they are simply playing politics and seeking to promote one particular brand of belief.

Of course, we know that couldn’t be the case.