The constitution, born from compromise, able to be amended and open to interpretation, is what protects me from your notion of what is and is not constitutional. Amazingly flexible and durable, the constitution itself explains how interpretations are to be made and adjudicated.
Only when one interpretation is seen as legitimate by one political ideology do we get into trouble. Ideologues should not stake a claim to the only proper way to interpret this document.
Correct.
In fact, all perceptions of the Constitution manifest as an interpretation, including 'literalism.' Because no political dogma possesses a monopoly on the meaning or original intent of the Constitution, the Framers wisely codified the doctrine of judicial review in Articles III and VI, where the courts are authorized by the Founding Document to review the constitutionality of laws as they had for more than a century before the advent of the Republic, and determine what the Constitution means as a result of the process of judicial review.
Consequently, the Constitution is neither 'living' nor 'static,' rather, it is the culmination of centuries of Anglo-American judicial tradition enshrining the fundamental principles of freedom and liberty that safeguard our civil rights.
As Justice Kennedy explained in
Lawrence:
“Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.”