During the bicentennial of the United States Constitution, many thoughtful programs were aired. Mortimer Alder spoke of the Constitution and I paraphrase what he said at St. John's College of Annapolis,

"If the Constitution were a document that was written and stayed in iron, only to be interpreted in the same old way," Adler would not have the respect for the document that he did. The genius of the Constitution is not what it was, but that it evolves - and that evolution makes it a document for the ages. That is what makes the American Constitution a Great document. (Notice that a great many conservatives are against any kind of evolution.)

Today the Right, a fundamentalist deal if there ever was one, wants a fundamentalist interpretation of the Constitution. Not saying they want the Constitution to make fundamentalism the State religion, though they want that, to be sure. What they want is what served them in Sunday school: to apply a literal interpretation to words written for a world centuries old. The fundamentalist have a literal interpretation of the Bible that is inflexible - at least in their eyes.

The Right wants that broadened to the Constitution.

I share Adler's view that what makes the Constitution a Great document is not its age, but its vitality - a living document that breathes and allows men to breath, not one which stifles and smothers and, ultimately, is mere parchment, but a step away from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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Updated 10/17/2005