Earlier this month, Democratic front runner Joe Biden reportedly declared that when it comes to his run for the presidency, the “Equality Act would be his top legislative priority, an effort to enshrine LGBTQ protections into the nation’s labor and civil rights laws.” Biden’s announcement brings up a very important question: Is our society strengthened or weakened by the advancement of such “equality” legislation? Certainly Biden and most public institutions think so. However, for those who know the Natural Law and the teaching of the ancients concerning law and language, a very different conclusion emerges. 

A law, according to Thomas Aquinas, is a “dictate of reason promulgated by a proper authority for the common good.” Conventional laws are made by a legislative body for the common good. However, in order to be good laws, man-made laws must be in accord with the Natural Law.

The Natural Law is the law written on our hearts — in other words, part of our nature. This Law is known by its effects. When one breaks the Natural Law by murder, lying, or stealing, it is exceedingly evident that these lawless acts are an offense to persons and society alike. Human sexuality is also subject to Natural Law. Although it is perhaps less evident than the above mentioned offenses, deviating from the Natural Law on human sexuality has detrimental effects on society as well.

The United States of America is a country founded on law and order. Our deepest roots extend into the Ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Roman civilizations. A great American professor once said “to discover what we have inherited from the Greek intellectual tradition, the Hebrew moral tradition and the Roman political tradition, is like a fish discovering water.” The progressive effort to cut us off from the Natural Law and our ancient roots is like sawing off the branch of a tree on which we sit.

Biden’s major aim is to facilitate “equality” laws concerning things that are inherently not equal. The crux of the problem lies in what LGBTQ advocates call “equality.” They are not asking for “equality”; they are asking for inequality. We can turn to Aristotle for an illustration that shows how the LGBTQ demands for equality are a misuse of speech and an injustice.

Aristotle’s clarity of thought and precision of language are an overwhelming inconvenience in an age that abuses speech such as ours. Aristotle makes the relationship between justice and equality clear in his “Politics” as he explains:

It is thought that justice is equality, and so it is, though not for everybody but only for those who are equals; and it is thought that inequality is just, for so indeed it is, though not for everybody, but for those who are unequal; but these partisans strip away the qualification of the persons concerned, and judge badly.

A clearer and more succinct explanation of the errors concerning the “equality” movements has not been rendered. All human souls are equal in intrinsic dignity and worth, but when it comes to law in society, there are many things that make us potentially unequal. For an example, to make the false claim that a married couple such as a man and a woman is equal to a couple such as a man and a man is to make the claim that unequal things are equal. This is simply bad judgement because one has to “strip away the qualification of the persons concerned” in order to make the claim. The union of a man and woman is not an  equal thing to that of a man and a man or a woman and a woman. To call unequal things equal is a misuse of speech.

As one modern philosopher paraphrases Aristotle’s point, “the worst form of injustice is to try to make unequal things equal.” The LGBTQ movement demands that inequalities be treated as equalities. However, honesty dictates renaming the “Equality Act” the “Inequality Act” in order to speak the truth in representation. The veracity of this statement resonates in the heart and mind of the well-formed citizen.

This very misuse of speech in calling the movement “equality” in the attempt to make unequal things equal necessitates the lie that men and women are equal when there are countless ways in which they are not. Men and women are complimentary; men and men are not. This leads to the web of untruths surrounding the majority of LGBTQ ideology.

Joe Biden’s political priorities may be good news for President Trump’s re-election efforts. In spite of tremendous propaganda proliferated throughout society, there are still many families that bristle at the misuse of speech and wrestle with their consciences on these questions of “equality.” Biden’s asserted platform on pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ rights is a terrible form of injustice. This will do him no real favors even if the polls indicate otherwise. The deeper problem is that his new priorities abuse speech to go against the Natural Law and the wisdom of the ancients. If he continues to assert “equality” laws based on the misuse of speech, his efforts will serve to lessen his chances of election and further erode the moral fabric of this great country.

Photo credit: Phil Roeder via Flickr, CC BY 2.0