Your Opinion: Response to assertion that "our rights come from God'

Dear Editor:

I get so weary of the trumpeting that our rights "come from God." Cal Thomas weighs in with his latest Op Ed on the recent kerfuffle in Alabama over gay marriage. Cal trots out the usual arguments, including the one that the Declaration of Independence states such with the words "Endowed by our creator."

Warning; blasphemy ahead. Our forefathers who created this nation were a bunch of thieves, liars and hypocrites. Had King George been able to muster up a few additional pounds Sterling, a large number of them would have been hung for what we today would call terrorism. (Consider the fact the document with the words "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" was written by a male slaveholder.)

Notice, I did NOT say our forefathers were stupid. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and and the others were far from stupid. And they certainly could turn a phrase. The Declaration of Independence is an enduring and wonderfully written document.

Yes, our forefathers knew a great deal about government, and yes, they may well have been geniuses. They constructed a system of government that was (and is) designed to prevent power from concentrating too much in one individual or branch.

No. Liberties, laws, rights and privileges are granted by man, in the form of the government that exists in the sovereign state. Ergo, slaveholding was perfectly fine in the in the time of drafting the Constitution. Cal even attempts to use this as an argument to make his point.

Yes. Dr. Martin Luther King certainly did make the argument that "God's law must trump man's law." Of course Dr. King used the argument. Just as Jefferson (a slaveholder) did.

Only recently has man granted the "right" for interracial marriage in these United States. It took until 1967 to get this question to the Supreme Court. The argument was given that to deny interracial marriage was to deny the right to "pursuit of Happiness."

And the Supremes said "by golly, you're right." Gay marriage is coming, and by exactly the same logic. The federal judges know this, which is exactly why Callie Granade over-ruled the Alabama constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

Judge Roy Moore knows it too. And he doesn't like it.