Senator Tim Kaine compares the founding document language to Iranian beliefs

A Democrat in the Senate compared the language of one of the country’s founding documents to that of Iran during a hearing in the Senate by considering the candidates of President Donald Trump.

Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA., Postponed the declaration of opening of Riley Barnes, who was operated by Trump to serve as an assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and work, during an hearing of the Senate on foreign relations.

Barnes quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his opening remarks, saying to the legislators of the panel: “We are a nation based on a powerful principle, and this powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator – and not from our laws, and not from our governments.

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Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA., Expresses himself during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations in the Dirksen Senate Office building on July 15, 2025, in Washington, DC (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

“The secretary continued by saying that we will always be strong defenders of this principle, and that is why the office of democracy, human rights and work is important,” he said. “We are a nation of individuals, everyone does in the image of God and having an inherent dignity. It is a truth that our founders understood as essential to American government autonomy.”

But Kaine, who is Catholic, found the feeling of “disturbing” barnes.

“The idea that rights do not come from laws and do not come from the government, but come from the creator is what the Iranian government believes,” said Kaine. “It is a theocratic regime which bases its rule on the Shiite law and targets the Sunnis, the Bahá’ís, the Jews, the Christians and other religious minorities.

“And they do it because they believe they understand what the natural rights of their creator are,” he continued. “Thus, the affirmation that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments are extremely disturbing.”

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One of the 25 surviving known copies of the Declaration of Independence, which was printed on July 4, 1776, was exposed to Sotheby’s on June 22, 2000 in New York. (Chris Hondos / Newsmakers via Getty Images)

Kaine said he was a “strong believing in natural rights”, but noted that if natural rights were to be debated by people within the committee room with different religious opinions and traditions, “there would be significant differences in the definitions of these natural rights”.

Although the Constitution does not explicitly mention God or a Creator, the declaration of independence.

Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that the “radical and dangerous notion”, according to Kaine’s words “, is literally the founding principle on which the United States of America has been created.”

“And if you do not believe me, and you have referred to this, Mr. Barnes, then you can perhaps believe the Virginian the most in order to never serve, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the declaration of independence,` `We hold these truths for self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator. ” ‘.

“Not by the government, not by the National Democratic Committee, but by God,” said Cruz.

The declaration of independence says: “We consider these truths that manifest themselves, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.”

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Bishop Robert Barron, commentator and popular Catholic author, reacted to the death of Pope Francis, the bishop of Rome. (Fox News Digital)

Kaine’s feeling shot the heat of Bishop Robert Barron from Minnesota, who swept his comments in a post on X Thursday. Barron argued that the legislator “actively challenged the idea that our rights come from God and not from the government”.

“If the government creates our rights, it can remove them,” said Barron. “If the government is responsible for our rights, well, it can change them.”

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“It seems extraordinary to me that a great American politician would not understand this truly elementary part of our system. God helps us. I mean that literally, God helps us if we say that our rights come from government, which gives the government, in fact, divine power,” continued Barron.

Fox News Digital contacted the comments of the Kaine’s office but did not immediately hear.