Whose Rights?

The other day on Capitol Hill, senator Tim Kaine was interrogating a witness during a recent Senate Foreign Committee hearing. During the question-and-answer session, Riley Barnes, whom President Trump has nominated to be assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, said that human rights are divine rights. In other words, the rights that we all agree every human possesses come, not from the government or any other earthly entity, but from the Creator.

Kaine took exception to Barnes’ characterization of rights by saying that “the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our government is extremely troubling.” Kaine went on to compare such a statement to the idea that Iran’s rulers have when they claim that their rights as leaders of that country come from Allah. The implication, in Kaine’s view, is that to say that the rights that we hold as dear in this country (and in the world at large) cannot come from God since other countries, countries that are hostile to human rights, also claim such a source for their own rights, is erroneous.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense can immediately see the problem with Kaine’s objection. First of all, leaving aside for a moment what human rights even mean or how countries around the world interpret them, it is clear from the founding documents of this nation, that the Founders believed that our rights in fact do come from God. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, not exactly a devout Christian, specified that we are endowed “by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” which formed the basis for the United States to declare its independence from Great Britain. These rights, Jefferson explained, had been violated by the king. It is clear to see that Jefferson and the rest of the Founders understood that rights come from a higher source than the king and thus could not be violated or changed by him or any other earthly institution as they saw fit.

Secondly, Kaine’s own conduct and beliefs give the lie to the idea that he believes that government is the source of our rights. Kaine has made pronouncements in the past concerning his belief that republicans in congress are attempting to violate the rights of women to have abortion on demand. He believes that it is a human right for homosexuals to marry. How can Kaine claim that human rights are given by government while holding to such ideas? Would Kaine agree with the Supreme Court that abortion can be restricted by the states as they in fact ruled in 2023? If the Supreme Court were to rule that homosexual marriage is unconstitutional, or at least should be left up to the states as they ruled with abortion, would Kaine go along with the ruling and concede defeat? Or would he fight such a ruling as he has been doing with the abortion ruling since its publishing? We do not have to guess what the answer to such questions would be since Kaine has been a vocal opponent of the Dobbs decision from the day it was handed down.

You see, the problem for people such as Kaine and other liberals is that they do not ground their beliefs in anything more than the whims of the government, the electorate, and their feelings. If one’s belief system is based on any or all of those three things, they will be shifting and changing as those institutions and ideas shift and change. What is today is a good and necessary thing can be an optional thing tomorrow. Of course, such people do not live lives that are consistent with their shifting values. No one in that liberal camp, Kaine least of all, would agree that slavery was a good thing or that it could once again be useful and acceptable. Yet, in order to be consistent he would have to arrive at that conclusion if the majority of Americans somehow changed their minds about that deplorable institution. One could use any number of examples that demonstrate the hypocrisy of such a stand.

Ultimately, the only sure foundation for individuals and society is nothing more than the Word of God. The only way that we can have consistent values that are not shifting with popular whims, is to base those values on the unmovable rock that is Christ and His revelation to man. What the Bible says is good today is what it has said for the balance of human history. We do not have to wonder what the Bible will say is good 100 or 1,000 years from now because it will be the same thing it is telling us today. As the inerrant word of a perfect God, we do not have to worry as to what it is that God requires of us today and will require of us tomorrow. In that fact we can put complete trust and faith!