Unitarian Universalism and American Values

We hear a lot about values and politics these days. Various religious leaders claim that their particular brand of Christianity is the basic foundation for our national values. Being a Unitarian Universalist and a student of history, I'm not willing to concede that point at all. First, many of our most influential founding fathers (and the mothers behind the scenes)were the religious liberals of their day. John Adams was a Unitarian and Thomas Jefferson was certainly far from a mainstream Christian. He would have felt right at home in one of our UU churches. There is a good web site I found that explores the religious views of the founding fathers. God & Country There was certainly discussion about the role of religion in government during the Constitutional Convention. The web site gives quotes for many of the delegates that indicate where they stood on this important issue.
In the end, it seems the liberals won out. The ideas they relied on in creating the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution came from philosophers like John Locke and Rousseau who were influenced and guided by Greek and Roman philosophy and the scientific method more than scriptures. The American values they did agree to included:
-Democracy
-Protection from government through due process, civil rights and checks and balances on government power
-Freedom of thought, speech, and religion
-The dignity and worth of each individual

During their lives, the founding fathers constantly read about, questioned, and debated, not only the current issues of their day, but theology. I doubt that Jefferson, Washington, Adams, or Franklin would have embraced the views or many of the values of today's religious conservatives. On the other hand, some of the other members of the Constitutional Convention who wanted a closer link between the goverment and the church would be cheering them on.