It is a very disturbing turn of events to hear such words coming from a high-ranking member of Congress. Senator Tim Kaine, a former Vice Presidential candidate, recently made a statement that should trouble every American who believes in the principles on which this nation was founded.

Kaine said:

“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes. It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. They do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”

 

Tim Kaine wants to remind you that your rights come from the government…

Not God.

This is the modern democrat party’s entire platform in a nutshell.
pic.twitter.com/smUCB8fzc5

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) September 7, 2025

This is not merely troubling — it is alarming. To hear an American senator compare the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that our rights come from God with the tyranny of Iran reveals a profound contrarian view to the very Constitution he swore to uphold.

The Foundation of the Republic

The United States was founded by men fleeing oppression. They rejected the idea that kings were sovereign above God, free to grant or deny rights at their whim. In 1776, they declared to the world that our rights are endowed by our Creator, not granted by men. Government’s role is clear and limited: to secure those rights and maintain law and order.

By contrast, the French Revolution of 1789 was built on the belief that government creates rights. That false foundation quickly produced chaos, bloodshed, and tyranny — the predictable result when human authority is placed above divine truth. The French have never fully recovered from the ruthless Jacobins who seized power, and they still suffer the consequences of that upheaval today.

Every Law Is Religious

What Senator Kaine fails to grasp is that every law is rooted in religion. It simply depends on what a nation defines as its “faith.” If it is Islam, laws reflect Islamic teaching. If atheism, then man himself becomes god, and laws follow that philosophy. If Hindu principles, laws will carry that religious mark. America was built on the conviction that the laws of nature and of nature’s God form the foundation of liberty.

To deny this truth is to ignore reality. Every law reflects a moral vision, and every moral vision is religious at its core. Pretending otherwise does not erase the fact — it only blinds a nation to the truth.

The Proper Order

We must never forget the order of things: there is God, the Creator. There is the Son, Jesus Christ. There is the people, created equal and endowed with rights. There is the church, a place of worship. And only then comes government — far down the line.

A good government recognizes its limited place. It does not toy with rights, it does not redefine them, and it does not dispense them according to popular sentiment. Its duty is to protect the rights already given by God.

The Question for America

Why are we tolerating representatives who deny this foundational truth? Why do Americans not call for the resignation of leaders who hold views so alien to the Republic they serve? To tolerate such views is to invite the erosion of the very foundation of our liberty.

This nation has already failed many — not just constitutionally and educationally, but spiritually. If we continue to abandon our foundations, we are signing our own doom. Spiritually first, and then physically, just as history warns us in the fate of the French Revolution.

We are a constitutional republic, not a playground for those who would substitute the laws of nature and of nature’s God for the whims of man. Good citizens must hold their government accountable to this order, or else risk losing it entirely.

— Claston A. Bernard, Author, Writer and Olympian