2016 Voter's Guide: How Do We Know What Our Rights Are?

     If our rights are not arbitrary, if they are objective gifts from God, how can we know what they are?  If they are built innately into the fabric of our lives, then what are they?  This is one of many areas in which religion and politics necessarily intersect.
     In discovering our rights, theologians can argue in two ways.  The first is to read the commandments of God in reverse:  If I am not to kill, I must have a right to life.  If I am not to steal, I must have a right to private property.  If I am not to sleep with another man's wife, then I must have a right to marriage.  If we are responsible before God to behave in a certain way, then he is showing us the boundaries of our freedom.
     Theologians can also look at our creation.  In the stories of Genesis 1-3, we have a description of the reality in which man finds himself.  We are made in the image of God, so what aligns with His character is good for us and what doesn't runs against reality itself.  Creation reflects the character of the Designer.  The shape of our rights, freedoms, and responsibilities can be described by enumerating five Design Decrees:

• Sanctity of Life.  Because man is made in the image of God, his life is special.  Murder, abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide are wrong because it is only God can give life and take it away.  Capital punishment is permitted to redress the injustice before God of taking human life.
• Sanctity of Law.  God, by right of creation, sets the boundaries of our  actions.  Good law is in line with His decrees.  Bad law opposes it.  
• Sanctity of Marriage.  Society has a vested interest in marriage as an essential building block of civilization.  God defines, by right of creation, marriage as a man and woman leaving their parent's home and forming a new home.
• Sanctity of Work.  Vocation and calling are essential parts of our make-up.  The work we do is to be respected.  Work is to provide for our families and to help us understand the world around us.  Work includes all kinds of pursuits of profit and discovery.
• Sanctity of Rest.  Man is made to rest, reflect, pursue social relationships, and to worship.  From rest we receive reflection, satisfaction and new energy for other endeavors.

     If this is the reality in which we find ourselves, then it is easy to see how our rights spring from the way we are made.  This fall vote for those who are willing to secure our rights for us.