Or perhaps some folks are unable to read it plainly without twisting themselves into pretzels and trying to assign a hidden meaning.
The Bible communicates with us in a number of different ways. Metaphors are metaphors, poetry is poetry, etc...and context is also important.
When Jesus was speaking in parables, He made that fact clear. When He was speaking plainly, I imagine He expected us to be able to figure that out.
Context (including genre) matters a great deal, and quite frankly, American fundamentalist interpretations don't usually take into account the first-century Jewish context the biblical writers wrote in. Remember, the biblical writers wrote as Jews in a particular place and time, to other Jews (and a few Gentiles) in particular places and times.
What we have in the Gospels is not Jesus speaking, but his faithful eyewitnesses' accounts of his speaking. We have no indication that Jesus had twenty-first century American Christians in mind when he was preaching, nor that 'he expected us to be able to figure it out' without any research into the context of his first-century Jewish culture--nor should we expect first-century Jewish culture to transliterate perfectly into our own twenty-first century American experiences.