We Hold These Truths

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That is the beginning of the document whose two-hundredth birthday was celebrated in 1976. Few Americans are familiar with the entire Declaration of Independence, but every American knows the sentence which begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” But did you notice, it said “all men are created equal?” It did not say “all women” and it never intended to say “all women.” It says exactly what was intended by the Founding Fathers: that all men are created equal.

This has been a problem of the human race down through all of recorded history. For centuries women have been treated as inferior beings. In the writings of early Church Doctors and theologians, for example, we read that a woman is “the advance post of hell.” We read…