I think that Civil Rights, founded as they are on written law and documents, are a firm foundation. The shifing sands of religious belief play well to the masses, and as such are used for propaganda documents such as the Declaration of Independence.
As an exercise try to go through the D of I and relate its charges to some specific act on the part of the British Crown. The ambiguity of the charges made them powerful as a statement of grievance, and hard to refute, even had the Crown been so inclined. Compare its charges with acts of the current US government, which the current US government could not have done if the D of I had been the foundation of our government.
The D of I is a wonderful document. It is not the foundation of our liberty.
The D of I is a wonderful document. It is not the foundation of our liberty.
It does not purport to be the Foundation of our Liberty. It acknowledges, as a self-evident truth, that our Liberty comes from the nature of Creation--from the Creator. That is the initial premise, before the long recital of quite specific grievances.
As for applying the grievances (see Declaration Of Independence) to the present excesses of our Federal Government, I do so all the time. The fact is that it is not just in this ongoing attack on religious symbols, that has so many stirred up, that the contrived erosion of our institutions is taking place. The traditional restraints on the arbitrary exercise of undelegated power, have also been under unrelenting attack for most of a Century--and generally from those having the same Fabian mindset or approach, as those who have supported the attack on religious symbols.
It will only make my point the more, to go back to you acceptance of the idea of a civil basis for determining rights. The so-called "Civil Rights" acts, which were premised on that idea--among others--specifically outlawed private preferences based upon religious beliefs in hiring and housing.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
"Civil Rights"? That is modernist version of natural rights, and natural rights was derived from 'natural law', a concept developed in the West first by Saint Thomas Aquinas, the middle ages theologian. That concept was carried forward by Locke and others, and then by the Americans who wrote the DOI.
In short, your real 'firm foundation' is Aquinas the Christian theologian and his 'natural law'.
See e.g.,
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/305701.htm and
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09076a.htm "According to St. Thomas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law" (I-II, Q. xciv). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm of all movement and action. When God willed to give existence to creatures, He willed to ordain and direct them to an end. In the case of inanimate things, this Divine direction is provided for in the nature which God has given to each; in them determinism reigns. Like all the rest of creation, man is destined by God to an end, and receives from Him a direction towards this end. This ordination is of a character in harmony with his free intelligent nature. In virtue of his intelligence and free will, man is master of his conduct. Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. "
This view of Aquinas as our rights and obligation deriving from 'natural law' is reflected in the thinking of our Founders:
"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.
"Can 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?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.
... and the DOI is not merely a catalog of complaints, but a testament to this philosophic belief in the Natural Rights of Man. It is thus vitally important that is was was "endowed by God with inalienable rights ..."