Whenever people use a document from an older historical period and interpret it now on the basis of completely different things that are occurring now...their interpretations can go far astray...and can be used to do strange and terrible things.

I give you 3 examples of this sort of thing:

1. the Bible
2. the Q'ran
3. the Consitution of the United States of America

Interpreted on the basis of the social realities at the time they were written one can usually see what was intended by what they said in those documents...how it was intended AT THAT TIME.

To take their literal words, however, and move them into the present reality and then use them to justify something totally different that someone is doing now is a travesty.

And that is what keeps happening. We are tied to old documents that weren't designed for present realities. We need to do some new thinking...or be honest about what was intended in those old documents, not just use them like a clever lawyer to pull off some self-aggrandizing legal trickery.