Ken Cuccinelli spoke to ODU’s College Republicans Friday night. They did not publicize the visit very well, but AltDaily’s John McManus did cover it. McManus did not offer any critique of Mr. Cuccinelli’s words, but one thing that struck me in the transcription is the following:
“It’s clear: the Founding Fathers believed the foundation, the source of the rights they were trying to protect, was God.”
Now, to be clear, I am a centrist liberal, and on the skeptical side as well. I would not be on Mr. Cuccinelli’s side in an election.
However, the above quote from Mr. Cuccinelli’s speech on Friday night is patently untrue. It is a falsehood that has been repeated by the Republican Party in the hopes that it becomes true in people’s minds… and the tactic has been effective. I think probably a lot of these politicians believe it themselves.
But we are talking about a group of men (The Founding Fathers) who were insistent on the separation of church and state. Most of them considered themselves Deists, not Christian. Thomas Jefferson rewrote the bible to remove “fantastic elements.” It’s called the Jefferson Bible.
These men were interested in creating a Republic which would stand the test of time; one way they sought to do this was by restricting the interaction between religion and government. This is not propaganda, it is simply the truth. The repetition of the opposite case is an attempt at propaganda, but it does not equate to truth.