MY ORIGINAL INTENT IS BETTER THAN YOUR ORIGINAL INTENT

I enjoy listening to conservative Christian television.  When bored I will often flip through the cable news channels to see if I can spot any of the god-fearing Christian crazies yelling about sin and homosexuals.    For the most part this activity provides great entertainment but it also keeps me up on recent trends of the fundy-Chrisitan crowd. 

They have aimed their sights on a new target recently: secularism.  The greatest threat to Christians is no longer sin but instead those “liberal activist judges” who would go against the founders’ “original intent” to make the United States a Christian nation.  I even heard one preacher take original intent one step further to explain why gay marriage is a threat to Christianity.  His logic goes something like this:

* The original intent of marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman that acted as a reflection of the relationship between God and humans

* Gays want to ruin marriage

* Therefore, gays want to ruin the relationship between God and humans.

He went so far as to call homosexuals a “dark force” that seek to destroy God and religion.  (Why must we use troubling color metaphors?)  He warned that if we deviate from both the original intent of marriage and the original intent of the Constitution we would surly face a world of sin and would all go to hell.

When did Christians start to want to make the United States a theocracy?  Why must the U.S. declare itself as a Christian nation?  Why do they see secularism as a threat?  And why, in God’s name (!), are we relying on the doctrine of original intent? 

Ever since the fundamentalist Christian crowd became political and tied themselves to the Republican Party, every state action to limit the relationship of the state to a single religion has been seen as another sign of the inevitable persecution of Christianity.  Never mind that posting the Ten Commandments in a government building silences other expressions of religion.  Never mind that mandatory school prayer forces students to adopt a religious practice, silencing their own religious or non-religious practices.  Christianity is being destroyed and the state must step in!

Adopting the phrase “original intent” is yet another marketing and political mistake.  The founders had many different and contradictory intents.  Even more, it would be quite difficult to figure out any person’s intent.  Most Constitution scholars reject a reading of the Constitution that would only focus on the intent of the founders.  (I do hope my good friend and scholar Vincent will comment on this post to elaborate further.) Fundamentalist Christians, however, seemingly apply the same hermeneutic practice to their reading of the Bible and the Constitution.  Their preachers know God’s intent in writing the Bible (remember, those human scribes had were guided by God) and, therefore, their preachers must know the founder’s intent in writing our Constitution.

When we argue points with these religious zealots we must thus be aware that it all comes down to hermeneutics.  It is amazing that so many people would believe one single interpretation of an ancient text and use this interpretation as blinders that allow them to ignore the plight of their neighbors. 

9:29:46 AM