Saturday, May 26, 2012

The Law of Our Own Land

Unlike the United Kingdom, the United States of America has a written constitution. Arguments can be made pro and con as to the benefit of having an unwritten constitution, but perhaps one in favor of the written variety is that the law is the law. The law can be altered. New laws can be created. But all laws must pass muster by way of meeting Constitutional agreement.
This can cause problems when the letter of the law creates unintended consequences, or when activist jurists reinterpret constitutional law in order to bring it in line with  a particular set of values.
The truth is that the framers of the Constitution were, in large part, men who held a conscious belief in the God of the Bible. Whether they were Baptist, Congregationalist, Lutheran, or Methodist, the writing and thinking process of these men was influenced by their own understanding of the universe, which for them was a Judeo-Christian view.
Today, of course, a great many men and women in the United States either grew up without or chose to ignore the Christian viewpoint, and that is their prerogative.
But it doesn't change the Constitution. We can try to reinterpret it as many do the Bible, placing a "modern" set of values into the text, and proclaiming that red is now orange, blue is now brown.
But like the Bible, the Constitution is not a living document. It survives intact. True, it has been modified a number of times through the amendment process. But there is no lawful approach to Constitutional amendment that flows through Judicial Fiat, nor is there a mechanism in place for the judiciary to consider the laws of foreign lands or societies when deciding a case.
The State of Kansas has enacted legislation ensuring that Sharia Law cannot be considered when a case is brought before state courts.
The shame isn't that they have done so. The shame is that such legislation had to be enacted in the first place.

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