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The Constitution, first drafted in 1787, stands as the supreme law of the land in the U.S. But Mary Anne Franks \\u2014 a law professor at the University of Miami who grew up attending a fundamentalist church in Arkansas \\u2014 says that often \\u201cwe read it not as a text but as Scripture,\\u201d much in the same way she was taught to read the Bible as a child.

Franks, author of The Cult of the Constitution, argues that originalism \\u2014 the judicial view that the Constitution should only be interpreted as its writers meant it to be when it became law \\u2014 has been used to justify ahistorically broad interpretations of both the First and Second Amendments. Rather than claiming \\u201ctranscendental access\\u201d to the founders\\u2019 legal intentions, she proposes we honor the Constitution communally by extending its rights and values to all, including the most vulnerable members of our society.