The Teachings of the Declaration

This Washington Post story features an encounter between Mitt Romney and a couple who are distrustful of a Mormon becoming president.  Here is Romney's speech to persuade the couple and others who may be wary of supporting a Mormon:

“This is an election not just about replacing President Obama, it’s an election about the soul of America,” Romney said, as Poe gingerly climbed a chair to get a better view. As Romney cited the Declaration of Independence, Poe nodded in agreement. “They said that we had been endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. And as you know, those rights came not from the state, not from the government, but from our creator.”

“He did great,” Poe said as Romney walked around the room shaking hands. “If he were the chosen candidate, I could support him, yes.”

Where has this kind of talk been?  This is in perfect agreement with the Founders and Thomas Aquinas, the latter who said that the natural law was the rational creature's participation in the divine law (notice that no mention of religious sect or denomination is present in this definition).

Here is Joseph Knippenberg with more:

Romney is here using what we are at least supposed to have in common–commitment to our founding principles–to bridge the gaps that divide us (particular creeds).  The principles support limited government, a common ground on which believers of many stripes can agree.  They’re more ”robust” than a Rawlsian “overlapping consensus,” which abjures any “metaphysical” statements about inalienable rights.

If this is any clue to the way Romney the nominee would comport himself, then we’d have an interesting debate between someone who takes the founding principles seriously and someone more comfortable filtering them through a Rawlsian lens.  I’ve long thought that the latter “liberal” response to pluralism cannot sustain what it purports to sustain.  Romney, on the other hand, is making common cause with Thomas Jefferson (not religiously orthodox, but politically true): ” [C]an the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?”

I just wish Romney would see the natural law reasoning he displayed above in reference to his healthcare plan and realize how off-base it actually is on the level of principle.