Would the Founding Fathers support the GOP?

I’ve been wondering about this a lot recently. The Founding Fathers were by and large men of the Enlightenment – rational, flexible, free thinking and inquisitive. It makes my blood boil when ignorant right-wing demagogues such as Gingrich and Palin assert that they are the direct inheritors of their legacy.

Sure, most of the Founding Fathers held the principles and beliefs we now associate with the modern GOP: Christianity, anti-feminism, anti-homosexuality, anti-big government and so on.

However, we should judge them by the standards of the time. I’m sure that if Washington, Jefferson and Franklin et al were around today, having witnessed all the scientific advances, political upheavals, social developments, wars, famines, diseases etc of the past 250 years, then they would be wise enough to see the benefits of liberalism rather than dogmatic conservatism. They would utterly repudiate the provincial small-mindness of those modern Republicans who would rather America go back to the world as it was in the late 18th Century rather than adapt to changing times.

I’d be interested to know what others think about this issue.