Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is being criticized for recent remarks given during the confirmation hearing of Riley Barnes, nominated by President Donald Trump to be assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor.
During the Sept. 3 hearing, Barnes said, “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator — not from our laws, not from our governments.”
“We are a nation of individuals, each made in the image of God and possessing an inherent dignity,” Barnes continued. “This is a truth that our founders understood as essential to American self-government.”
In response, 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 (sic) law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, and 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.”
Kaine is no stranger to controversy. He ignited a firestorm while running as the Democratic vice presidential nominee after suggesting the Catholic Church will eventually abandon its view on same-sex marriage and should ordain women as priests.
While the Constitution does not explicitly reference a god or creator, the Declaration of Independence does. Originally drafted by another famous Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration specifies that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that 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.”
Kaine’s expressed view during the hearing is best defined as legal positivism, which suggests that the existence and content of law depends on social facts, instead of its moral content. This approach contradicts with natural law theory, which suggests that law derives its legitimacy from higher moral principles or natural laws.
Kaine, who is Catholic, responded to criticism in an op-ed published Tuesday for Fox News, clarifying that “all people are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights. But those rights are essentially meaningless unless they are protected by law.”
Kaine’s view did exist, but was rejected, at the founding. In 1775, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
July 4, 2026, will mark the 250th anniversary of the Continental Congress voting to formally adopt the Declaration of Independence.