A proper understanding of both the values and value of the United States of America rests on the understanding that the Declaration of Independence is the founding document equal in authority to the Constitution and should be considered part of the Constitution's preamble, and should be used to interpret the Constitution as the Constitution should be used to interpret the Declaration.
As the Declaration declared the Man's authority to dissolve his bonds with Government (King George III), the Constitution declared the establishment of Government by We The People by that same authority. As the Declaration declared our, the People's, rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the Constitution clarified those rights in the Bill of Rights. As the Declaration declared a right to Liberty, and as the Constitution was established for the Common Good, a proper definition of Liberty that honor's both the Declaration and Constitution is this: License to exercise our duty to the Common Good.
As the Declaration declared the Man's authority to dissolve his bonds with Government (King George III), the Constitution declared the establishment of Government by We The People by that same authority. As the Declaration declared our, the People's, rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the Constitution clarified those rights in the Bill of Rights. As the Declaration declared a right to Liberty, and as the Constitution was established for the Common Good, a proper definition of Liberty that honor's both the Declaration and Constitution is this: License to exercise our duty to the Common Good.
The common theme between both these documents is that authority is not granted on a whim but comes from a source with the authority to grant authority. Authority to give power to the Government comes from the People, and the People's authority comes from the Creator. Man does not have the authority to grant himself this power any more than Government has the authority to grant itself power.
Nature/Creation cannot itself experience happiness and is therefore not qualified to establish happiness as an end of itself or to grant such a right to Man. Only a Creator who operated in a universe where Happiness was a pre-existent component of the fabric of reality -- who conceived Man first and foremost for His own Happiness who then created Man as a being in flesh to instantiate Happiness -- would have the authority to endow man with the Moral Patent of the Declaration: the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Man's own Happiness. Only such Creator would have the authority to grant the Moral Patent to Man such that Man would have the authority to grant or remove power from Government.
Nature/Creation cannot itself experience happiness and is therefore not qualified to establish happiness as an end of itself or to grant such a right to Man. Only a Creator who operated in a universe where Happiness was a pre-existent component of the fabric of reality -- who conceived Man first and foremost for His own Happiness who then created Man as a being in flesh to instantiate Happiness -- would have the authority to endow man with the Moral Patent of the Declaration: the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Man's own Happiness. Only such Creator would have the authority to grant the Moral Patent to Man such that Man would have the authority to grant or remove power from Government.
All laws are based in one or another moral universe that is governed by one or another moral authority. Since this Creator is a self-evident truth of the Declaration, laws whose moral authority can be traced back to this Creator are not are not "laws made with respect to Religion", which by definition is that based on Faith and not which is self-evident. The Creator --as defined and revealed in the Declaration --is the moral authority and the Creator's moral universe -- as defined and revealed in the Declaration--- is the moral universe by which laws should be judged as being Constitutional.
