Thursday 19 September 2013

Complete Equality

As many of you know, I class myself as an Egalitarian. My ideal in life is that every single person in the world deserves the same rights, opportunities and respect as each other, which of course goes hand in hand with everyone having the same personal and social responsibilities such as being subject to the law, etc.

In my interactions around the web it's coming to my attention that many people seem to have a fundamentally flawed concept of what equality actually is and what complete equality actually entails.

It's very easy to fight for the equal rights of people you agree with, even if you don't share their reasons. For example, more and more straight people, myself included, are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT community to see the end of injustice on the grounds of sexual orientation and identity.

It's much harder to fight for the rights of those you don't agree with, the bigots, the criminals, the oppressors. To stand up and say "though I don't agree with their beliefs or actions, it doesn't stop them from being a human being with the exact same rights and responsibilities as everyone else." But this is exactly what complete equality entails. It's not just a social club where we get to pick and choose who we let in and who we don't, because if it's not for everyone then it's just not equal!

So if your method of fighting for a cause leads you to denigrate those whose opinions differ from your own then you've lost your moral high ground.