NEW YORK -- Did you catch John Kerry's gaffe in the third debate?

No, not the one about Mary Cheney being born a lesbian. That abusive and cynical outburst produced gasps in living rooms around the nation and certainly cost Kerry votes.

But there was a more serious gaffe in the debate. It revealed how Kerry's vision of government is at odds not just with that of George Bush but with that of America's founders. In answer to a question about gay marriage, Kerry said: "Because we are the United States of America, we're a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can't discriminate in the workplace. You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people."

"A gaffe," as columnist Michael Kinsley once wrote, "is when a politician tells the truth." In this case, Kerry's gaffe is an inadvertent statement of what he -- and many on the left -- believe is the truth but is actually false and dangerous.

The key phrase was "rights that we afford people." This was no mistake. He said it twice.

Kerry believes that the United States government, through the Constitution, "affords" rights to Americans. My dictionary defines "afford," in this context as "give, grant, confer." In other words, we fortunate, benighted Americans have a country, a government that grants us rights.

That's an utterly inaccurate reading of the great documents of the founding of this nation. Our government does not grant us any rights at all. On the contrary, Americans start off with rights, and it is we who grant the government certain limited powers to protect those rights.

Where do our rights come from if they don't come from government? They come from God -- which may be why John Kerry doesn't get it.

The Declaration of Independence makes the relationship between citizens and government crystal clear. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," it says, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." (In other words, God gives us rights that can't be taken away.) "Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -- which is to say, everything.

Now, what's the job of government? The Declaration says that it is "to secure these rights." And, to make sure there's no misunderstanding, the document emphasizes that governments "are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

This is no small matter. Alexander Hamilton, who is being honored in a wonderful exhibition here at the New-York Historical Society, wrote in 1774, "That Americans are entitled to freedom is incontestable upon every rational principle. All men have one common original: they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right."

Hamilton was 19 at the time. Kerry, who is 60, has another view, befitting the senator rated farthest left by the National Journal.