These men operated on principles. When John Adams asked Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, he was seeking a document that declared the rights of the colonists as Englishmen. That isn’t to say that Adams wanted anything to do with the British. He just had a narrow view of what was necessary to declare independence. He wanted Jefferson to make the point that they were all Englishmen and should thus be treated justly – and soon separately.
But Jefferson would have no part of such a view. He instead wrote a document declaring not just the rights of Englishmen, but of all men. Adams was surprised by this – and much delighted.
Being against individual rights, therefore, would run counter to what these men believed. This is especially true if we were to transport them into modern times with modern context. For example, many of them held slaves (though with better treatment than the average slave – not that they were justified with owning people in the first place, obviously). We cannot go from that point and say that the founding fathers would therefore hate the freedoms that are enjoyed by all races. Take them outside their time with a modern point of view built upon their principles and you inevitably end up with anti-slavery views.
The same would apply to homosexuality, I think. These men were deists, so they were untainted by religious bigotry. In fact, the original starting line to the Declaration of Independence was one that was anti-Christian. And since there is no good secular reasoning as to why we should not allow same-sex marriage, I think these men would be forced by their principles to favor it.
But even should I be wrong about that, it is certain that they would hate the purely religiously based arguments against same-sex marriage. Adams often sneered at the idea of Christianity itself. Jefferson coined the phrase ‘separation of church and state’. All these men greatly opposed having any religion make a marked influence on the role of government. Given that marriage licenses are a purely governmental (and secular) affair, there is no way they could have stood for all this anti-same-sex marriage malarkey.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: John Adams, The Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson | Leave a comment »
For the Sake of Science 