At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said he was “very, very troubled” by a statement he attributed to Secretary Marco Rubio: “Our rights come from God, our creator, not from our laws, not from our governments.” Kaine, identifying himself as a devout person who served as a missionary, pushed back hard on the idea that rights are grounded in a Creator rather than law, saying the notion resembles how “the Iranian government” justifies its rule.
He warned that, in America, the promise is “equal justice under law,” and that every person is “entitled to the equal protection of the laws” under the 14th Amendment – regardless of religious belief.
Kaine’s Positive-Law Framework
Sen. Kaine framed rights primarily as legal guarantees – products of constitutions, statutes, and enforceable institutions – rather than as pre-political entitlements. He emphasized the oath officials take to “support and defend the Constitution,” not “arbitrarily defined natural rights,” and argued that people of many faiths (or none) would sharply disagree about what “natural rights” mean. In that light, he cautioned against elevating “Creator-given” rights over the legal architecture that actually secures and enforces equal protection.
Kaine’s Iran Analogy – and Why It Landed Like a Thunderclap
Kaine went further, saying that asserting rights from the Creator rather than government is “what the Iranian government believes,” invoking a theocratic regime that enforces religious law and persecutes minorities. His point: once the state claims divine authority, it can redefine rights at will and oppress dissenters.
Even many who disagree with Kaine’s conclusion would see what he’s aiming at – warning against substituting the subjective claims of a powerful few for law that binds everyone. That said, the analogy landed like a thunderclap in Washington because it seemed to equate America’s founding rights language with a theocracy that denies basic freedoms.
Cruz’s Rebuttal: “That’s the Founding Principle”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who entered the hearing as Kaine spoke, said he “almost fell out of [his] chair.” Cruz argued that calling God-given rights “radical and dangerous” is to reject the nation’s birth certificate: Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration that all are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… [including] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Cruz’s historical point was crisp: government exists to protect pre-existing rights; it does not create them. He underscored that slavery was immoral “even when US law allowed it,” illustrating how positive law can lag morality – and how the appeal to rights beyond the state animates reform.
Langley’s Grassroots Reaction: “They Think They Invented Your Rights”
On his YouTube channel, Braden Langley (Langley Outdoors Academy) seized on the moment as proof that some lawmakers believe rights come from “the laws that we pass.” He quotes Jefferson and stresses a structural reason the Founders grounded rights above government: if government didn’t grant them, it cannot take them away. Langley’s rhetoric is bracing and partisan, but his core claim mirrors Cruz’s – rights predate the state, and the Constitution restrains government precisely because it’s not the fountainhead of human liberty.
The Natural-Rights vs. Positive-Law Divide, in Plain English
Under the natural-rights view (Jefferson, Madison, the abolitionists, the civil-rights movement), rights are inherent to persons; law’s job is to recognize and protect them. Under a purely positive-law view, rights are the rules we enact and enforce; they exist because – and only insofar as – government says so.
Most American constitutionalism blends both: we enshrine pre-political rights in legal texts and enforce them through courts and public institutions. Where Kaine’s comments stung critics is that they sounded like an outright rejection of the natural-rights strand that saturates the founding era and many of our most celebrated movements for justice.
Kaine’s Additional Charge: Rights Reporting and Lived Liberties
Kaine also criticized changes to a State Department human-rights report – saying references to LGBTQ rights, freedom of association/expression, child exploitation, and prison conditions were removed and that “making it shorter” wasn’t a serious justification. He tied these to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” implying that when government deemphasizes such reporting, it can erode real-world protections. Even if one disputes his account of the report’s edits, the thrust is clear: for Kaine, law, policy, and reporting architecture are the frontline tools that safeguard (or neglect) human dignity.
Cruz’s Constitutional Throughline
Cruz flipped Kaine’s premise: if rights come from God/nature, then government’s role is limited and ministerial – “to secure these rights,” as the Declaration says. He implied that forgetting this tempts politicians to expand the state’s remit, converting fundamental liberties into permissions. Cruz’s rhetorical move – invoking slavery – was a reminder that “the law” isn’t always right; it gets corrected by higher appeals to justice that the American tradition frames as inherent rights. Whether one agrees or not, it’s a canonical argument in our public philosophy.
What Kaine’s Critics Get Right – and What They Miss
Kaine’s critics are right that the Founders rooted American liberty in a pre-government source. That’s textual and historical. But Kaine’s concern isn’t absurd either: the United States avoids theocracy because the Constitution embeds those pre-political rights into a secular, legal system all can access, regardless of creed.
In other words, “rights come from the Creator” does not mean “clerics run the state.” It means the state is limited by moral truths it doesn’t invent – truths then translated into constitutional law that binds everyone, including those wielding power.
Langley’s Power Point (Minus the Rhetorical Grenades)
Strip away the YouTube bombast and Langley is making a structural argument worth hearing: if politicians believe rights are their gift, they will be quicker to “take them back,” from speech to self-defense. The genius of the American design was to put rights outside the reach of ordinary politics, requiring supermajoritarian, textual, and historical hurdles before government can curtail them. You don’t have to agree with Langley on every policy detail to see the danger in treating fundamental liberties as revocable licenses.
Is the Iran Comparison Fair?
I don’t think so. Equating Jefferson’s Creator-language with Tehran’s theocracy is a category error. The American claim is that rights are inherent and that no religious authority governs the state. Iran’s claim is that religious law dominates the state. The former limits government by placing rights beyond its grant; the latter empowers government by merging it with clerical rule. Kaine’s caution about subjective “natural rights” is not frivolous – interpretation is hard – but the Iran comparison muddies more than it clarifies.
The Practical Stakes: Courts, Congress, and Culture
In day-to-day governance, both visions matter. Congress and agencies write and enforce laws (Kaine’s emphasis). Courts review those laws against constitutional guarantees (Cruz’s emphasis). And culture – what citizens believe about the source and sanctity of rights – shapes both. If more lawmakers view rights as revocable grants, the gravitational pull will favor broader government discretion. If they view rights as pre-political, the instinct will be to restrain the state and demand tighter fit with text and history. The balance we strike will define our politics for years.
Where I Come Down
The American formula isn’t either/or. It’s both/and: unalienable rights articulated in the Declaration, secured by a Constitution, enforced by law, interpreted by courts, and legitimated by consent of the governed. Kaine is right to insist that law, not personal revelation, must do the protecting. Cruz and Langley are right that law is bounded by rights it didn’t create. When senators talk as if government manufactures our liberties, they invert that hierarchy – and that should worry anyone who prefers citizens to subjects.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
