I found Bill O’Reilly’s observations on equality refreshing in that he actually opened his ideological kimono and bared the workings of his “thinking”. If you haven’t seen this clip, you should. Bill tells us that “trying to achieve equality is unnatural”. To strive for equality, as does the President, is to live in “an opium laced dream”. Bill himself is not as tall, black or as rich as his “fellow Irishman” Shaquille O’Neal: Q.E.D. there is no equality.

Many of us humbler folk aren’t as confused as Bill about what equality means in our lives. I represent a local labor union; a fairly large and very diverse group of people who work in an industry that requires a wide range of skill sets but which normally does not require any single individual to possess all these skill sets. So my Local provides employers with work crews that, collectively, meet our employers’ range of required skills and abilities. The women and men in my local do not confuse equality with identity.  They are fully aware of the differences of gender, ethnicity, age, personality, religion, aptitudes and work experience that make each of us different. But they stubbornly hold on to the notion (handed down to them from the Judeo Christian tradition and its Enlightenment elaboration) that we should  see ourselves in others; that we see through the camouflage of superficial differences and recognize in others the humanity we feel ourselves to possess. They hold it to be self-evident that they each and all deserve equal protection in the workplace and an equal opportunity to achieve their personal goals. Their equality with each other is a moral commitment to an abstraction.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28) Advice from that opium eater, St. Paul.