re: #193 Charles Johnson

The concept of universal rights is a product of the Enlightenment, and to some extent the humanism of the Renaissance and even British law, beginning with Magna Carta. European philosophers, including Rousseau, Locke and several others, helped forge our modern concept of human rights. They argued that everyone was entitled to the same rights, not just the landed gentry, the aristocracy, the clergy and the monarch. From their efforts, we got the US Constitution with the Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Universal Rights of Man.

Underlying those philosophies was a belief in an abstract Deity that conferred those rights on humanity, as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, for example. But there was no understanding that religion — that is, the organized churches — or Scripture itself granted those rights. In fact, religion then as now typically was all about depriving some people their human rights to benefit other people’s circumstances.

To argue that God gives us rights directly is a backhanded way of justifying discrimination against certain people. If homosexuality is a sin, then it follows that God must not favor gays and lesbians with civil rights. Not having equal rights is a kind of temporal punishment for their sin, and a True Believer, as an agent of God, is then justified to discriminate against gays and lesbians, or anyone else they don’t approve of.

To admit rights come from secular sources — the government or humanistic traditions — deprives bigots of their justification for discriminating against people. So, I’m not surprised you’re getting pushback from some quarters.