Your Opinion: Response to Sampson on source of rights

Dear Editor:

A comment to the opinion by Mr. Sampson published on March 26, "The Mayflower Compact, one of the first if not the first, document written to govern the affairs of men, states ...".

Wow. Let us stop there for a moment. The earliest known "document written to govern the affairs of men" dates to about 2400 BCE. (Clay tablets from Elba, an ancient city in what is now Syria). The Code of Hammurabi was written somewhere around 1750 BCE. The Magna Carta was foisted upon King John in 1215.

All through history, "rights" have been given from the ruling class in order to keep the ruled from revolting and removing the monarchs head. Eventually, things progressed to the point that the "philosophy" of humans having rights inalienable caught on with the "liberals" in Europe (particularly John Locke, but others).

This line of thinking was picked up by some of the inhabitants of a colony of England in "the new world" who were working toward breaking free of the mother country. These folks wrote some quite flowery words to declare to King George that "they were through."

Human rights are an invention of humanity. They are laws, laws designed to implement the societal norms by which we should behave. The only inalienable rights you have are those the sovereign state gives you. And that presupposes the sovereign state has the muscle to defend itself from conquest.

The Christian Right has been trumpeting about rights, bibles, and the "direction our country is going" for some time now. Here's what is going on.

In reality, they are beside themselves with the fact that we are not a "Christian Nation." Their logic goes, if you chip away at the periphery, making sufficient noise, then perhaps our legislators will enact "correct" laws. In other words, the rights God would grant are okay to allow to the people, but we must deny rights that "God would not grant."

Let us use an example of say, gays and marriage. Being gay is a sin, the Bible says so. Therefore gays should not be allowed to exist, let alone marry.

I believe using your religion to deny rights to people not of your religion is perverse. Our form of government is designed to jealously guard religious freedom. The state may not favor one religion over another. I wish the Christians would ruminate on that fact.

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