Is the Bible unconstitutional?

Last Fall, famed legislative firebrand Ernie Chambers launched a lawsuit against God, for causing "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like." Ernie claimed that he undertook to haul the Lord into court to make a point about frivolous lawsuits, though his sympathies for the Christian religion are known to be less than enthusiastic.

A similar toned lawsuit was filed this week, except this time the litigant is, I assume, completely serious. A Michigan man, according to press reports "is suing Zondervan Publishing and a Tennessee-based publisher, claiming their versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin violate his constitutional rights and have caused him emotional pain and mental instability." The man is representing himself in this suit, since he has been refused public counsel. "The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims," the judge wrote.

This lawsuit may seem to most like some delusional daydream, the product of a mind so hostile to the Bible that he could imagine outlawing the Scriptures for offending his lifestyle. And, we may be thankful, better legal minds recognize, at least for now, there is no basis in existing law and interpretations of the consitituion to support such a suit. But could that change in the future?

Our constitution allowed for the enslavement of black Americans for nearly eighty years before the 13th Amendment officially put an end to that practice. Women had to wait until 1920 to have the constitutional right to vote. How long will it be until gays and lesbians, transexual and transgender individuals and other variations are constitutionally protected against "emotional pain" caused by a widely published and oft-quoted religious book?

The right of homosexual couples to marry seems destined to become a national right, not just in a few states. The hate crime of speaking publicly against them, as it is already so in Canada, seems likely to be written into American law some day. And if the gay-rights people get their way with the Bible, how long will it be until the denunciation of moral "sin" is not simply "old-fashioned", as it seems to be in many places, but "unconstitutional"?

The 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech is already limited by words regarded as "dangerous" (like yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater), or "slanderous" (like publicly telling lies about a person). Is it really that far from where we are now to deciding that anti-gay speech, even if it's in the Bible, is just too slanderous to be legal?