‘Equality’ Act Is a Lie: It’s Never Been About Equality

How do you know when progressives are lying? When they say it's about 'equality.'

By Tom Gilson Published on May 15, 2019

They’re calling it an “equality” act. The title is a lie. Don’t let it take you in.

It’s great rhetoric, for sure. Americans love equality. There’s nothing we venerate more than the Declaration of Independence and its stirring statement, “all men are created equal.” We’ve even recognized that this includes all men and all women. America means nothing if it doesn’t mean equality.

But what happens when subverts “equality” for their own purposes? It’s no longer virtue; it’s a perversion, damnable act of deception, instead.

But this is exactly the ploy progressives have been using to get their way. “Equality” is their power play — precisely what it was never meant to be.

“Marriage Equality” Was a Lie

Take “marriage equality,” for example. It’s deception. Manipulation. (I’ve been pounding the table for years on this.) No one believes in marriage equality. Gay marriage is just as unequal as real marriage has always been. It draws a line, saying “These sorts of unions may count as marriage; these, and no other.” That’s exactly the same language supporters of natural, man-woman marriage would have used for centuries, when they had reason to talk about it that way.

So there is no dispute over equality here. We all agree: Marriage rights are equal up to a certain line; beyond that they’re unequal. Gay activists haven’t produced “marriage equality” for close relatives who want to marry each other, for adults who want to be “married” to young children, or for threesomes. Cross a certain line, and marriage rights are no more equal today than they’ve ever been. (Thank God.)

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Gay advocates call gay marriage “equal marriage;” in fact, they’ve only shifted the line marking off where “equality” is or isn’t permitted. It’s a line that made sense when it included only man-woman marriage. Now it’s completely arbitrary. Gay activists’ arguments for same-sex marriage would work equally well in other activists’ mouths for incestuous “marriage,” polygamy, or all manner of perversion. Gay activists have no principled reason  to say “marriage equality” doesn’t belong to those groups as much as to same-sex couples. Their line fits nothing except what they were able to get away with politically.

Prostituting “Equality” to their Private Purposes

So why’d they call it “marriage equality,” then? Easy! Equality sells so much better than, “Hey, let’s shift the line for what counts as marriage to some new, politically expedient, but otherwise arbitrary location.”

It really never was about equality. They only chose that for their catchword because they knew Americans are conditioned to like equality. We approve of it automatically, thoughtlessly. How many people do you know who’ve pointed out the inequality that still remains in marriage? How many people have thought about it? But then why would we think about it? It’s equality! It’s America!

No, it’s prostituting “equality,” twisting what it means to be “America,” all to get the country to buy in to gay activists’ preferred pet privileges.

There’s Always a Lie in Progressive “Equality”

Always look for the lie when progressives use the word “equality.” Count on it: There’ll be one there. Usually more than one.

More recently they’ve done the same with “equal treatment for trans persons.” The result of this, too, has been manifestly unequal. “Trans girls” have supposedly “equal rights” to compete against actual female athletes — which gives them a decidedly unequal advantage. Activists crusading for trans bathroom rights built their campaigns on trans persons’ “right” to respect, privacy and safety in rest rooms. It was a “right” that has quite unequally trampled on normal persons’ respect, modesty, privacy and safety.

So here’s the principle: Always look for the lie when progressives use the word “equality.” Count on it: There’ll be one there. Usually more than one.

And now here we are again with a new “Equality Act.” The principle holds; there are multiple lies here.

Lies About “Equality”

First, it endorses, enshrines, and carves in stone all the LGBT lies I’ve mentioned above. Politically, it’s the natural next step to follow them. It’s politically built on them.

Second, it makes things “equal” that simply aren’t. “Trans girls” are not equal to actual girls. Men and women have inequalities, too. Men tend to favor higher-risk occupations for a reason. There are good reasons, too, that more women’s careers are interrupted during child-raising years. To deny reality is always a matter of ignorance, insanity or deceit; and that applies to denying the reality of actual male-female differences.

Third, it greatly undermines ordinary persons’ equal opportunity to make their own decisions based on their own good judgment. It subjects them to the hard, heavy hand of a government that won’t listen to them, won’t value them — exactly what the Declaration of Independence was written to oppose.

Lies Behind the Act

Fourth, the Act’s promoters twist existing realities. Activists still say women earn 40 percent less than men, when in fact there’s no distinction when jobs are compared equally. Women college students greatly outnumber men in college.

Fifth, its promoters claim opponents are motivated by “hate.” They’ve rewritten the meaning of that word; now it means, “You’re a hater if you disagree with me.”

It’s bad enough to lie. It’s doubly destructive to aim your lies straight at the heart of who we are as a country.

Sixth, promoters claim it won’t infringe on religious freedom. Check here if you believe that.

How do you know when a progressive is lying? The old answer was, “when their lips move.” I’ll be more generous than that. It’s “when they say ‘equality.’” Don’t believe it. Look for the lie.

Lies that Destroy

And never forget what it is they’re using to deceive and manipulate us all. Equality is good, in the proper use of the term. It’s the virtue that has made America great. Not that we’ve always practiced it, for we haven’t always been as great as we could be. But when we’ve treated one another as created equal, our nation has truly shone.

It’s bad enough to lie. It’s doubly destructive to aim your lies straight at the heart of who we are as a country.

Which brings us to one final lie. They say they care about equality. They say it’s all about preserving who we are as Americans. No, it’s about destroying the institutions, the systems and the moral capital that allow a nation like ours to govern itself as men and women with equal worth and equal rights — and doing it so they can get what they want.

 

Tom Gilson is a senior editor with The Stream, and the author of A Christian Mind: Thoughts on Life and Truth in Jesus Christ. Follow him on Twitter: @TomGilsonAuthor.

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