OPINION:
Leftists love to talk about the need for equity in America, equity in business; they love to talk up the need for diversity, equity and inclusion standards to be created by government and pushed into the hallowed halls of America’s economic structures and education facilities and cultural institutions; they love to demand DEI become the singular guiding compass for all future operations. They see it as an altruistic calling; they see it as a morally righteous imperative; they see it as their religious duty.
But equity is actually the domain of God.
And that makes DEI, as defined by today’s Democrats, as prescribed by today’s Democrats, an open rebellion against God.
“Mighty King, lover of justice, though hast established equity,” Psalm 99 reads, according to the Revised Standard Version. King James says the same: “[T]hou dost establish equity.”
Psalm 9 states similarly: “But the Lord … judges the peoples with equity.”
God’s got this.
Not Democrats.
So when leftists with designs to grow government and remove God from all-things-public in America replace the word equality with the word equity and insist that political leaders take on the role of creating standards of equity, it’s a red flag. It’s a red flag because it’s not coming from a place of biblical equity, but rather earthly, politicized equity.
As social justice warrior DeRay Mckesson put it, in the wake of the St. Louis police shooting death of Michael Brown — and the ensuing lies of the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” movement that developed: “The difference between equity and equality is that equality is everyone get[s] the same thing and equity is everyone get[s] the things they deserve,” TechCrunch reported, in 2017.
That’s a perilous line for America to walk.
Whereas the Constitution, court cases, capitalism and the concept of American Exceptionalism all guarantee the right of the individual to pursue success and happiness regardless of race, sex, income level — while still allowing that not all want the same things; not all possess the same talents and skills; not all will in the end reap identical rewards — equity is a different beast.
Equity says that no matter where all start, all must finish the same.
Moreover, equity dangerously sets somebody in charge of ensuring that all finish the same.
In a scenario where Joe Citizen works hard, studies harder, scrimps and saves the hardest of all, and as such, manages to move from poverty to riches, and Jack Citizen drops out of school, sells drugs, goes to jail, and fails to learn any valuable skills that yield career advancement — equality holds Jack accountable for poor life choices. Equity cries that Jack had a hard life and that Joe should therefore pay to support Jack — and that government, and only government, can manage the task of properly redistributing resources.
No wonder Democrats love a good DEI sob story.
They can exploit the heck out of it for political purposes.
After all, it’s easy to turn Jack into a victim. It’s easy for Democrats to demand more tax dollars for Jack; to call out the social injustices of society and advocate for more government services; to rail against a criminal system that unfairly imprisons some, but lets others go free — and then to cite wildly out-of-context statistics about skin colors and police brutality and so forth and so on; statistics which serve only to incite the masses and fuel angst and division that can be further exploited for political use.
Democrats, with equity, find easy causes to pretend to support; to turn into talking points to attack Republicans.
Equality is a lot harder in that regard.
Equality says we are all equal in God’s eyes; that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are the rights to pursue life, liberty and happiness — but that the outcomes of those pursuits depends largely on the individual.
Equality means government needs to get out of the way of God working through the individual to bring about His glory — glory which very often includes elevating those with the least to positions that are the highest.
Equity means God needs to get out of government’s way, so that the bureaucratic class can have a good look at who’s got what, who should get what, and who should give up what to provide for the government’s selected class.
Equality is freeing. Equity is binding.
Equality is American. Equity is communist.
Equality is godly. Equity is wicked; it promotes a lie and promises an outcome that can never be realized.
And it’s not just a political endeavor, or a Democrat talking point, or a leftist trend, or a social justice warrior tactic that has suddenly, and seemingly from nowhere, sprung into America’s businesses and economic models, and places of education.
It’s a secular push toward collectivism with roots in spiritual warfare and led by the very enemies to God.
The Bible makes that clear.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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