LAWLzoR

We're fortunate enough to live in an era that most of the equality issues have been solved for the better. But it makes you wonder, how did they start anyway? We've learned that unless you were a Christian while male from Europe or America, you won't have quite the easy life. In some places, it's true unfortunately. Let's see how we moved from bigot to big success in human history.

Let's start with the philosophy of Christianity. In Christianity, I believe it is either mentioned or implied that slavery is wrong. Such as with the story of Ramesses and Moses. For those who don't know, the story says in summary that the Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians for their religion. Moses, brother of Ramesses, was sent away at birth to protect himself from the genocide of the Jewish people. He was picked up by the pharaoh at the time, and was raised into royalty. Knowing his history and where he came from, he abandoned his family, but came back, to find the enslavement of the Jewish people. He then fought with his brother to "Let his people go", as mentioned in the Moses vs Santa rap battle. The story continues with Moses, but it's this point of the story that's important. While Christianity wasn't the first religion to say slavery was wrong (Zoroastrianism in the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great), it gives way into the west coming to this philosophy.

So with Christianity keeping most slavery in Europe to at most a bare minimum, what else pushed for less slaves? The western enlightenment of the 18th century to the early 19th century also gave a secular spin to human kindness. The Enlightenment idea of why slavery is wrong is probably what we think of when we answer why slavery is wrong. However, during the 16th century onward, slavery was still going on, particularly in Brazil and Mexico. Again, back to the Enlightenment (and pressure from England and other countries who stopped using the slave trade with Africa), Portugal and Spain stopped using slaves.

The main reason why African slaves were used was that they were rather cheap, because at the time, the chiefs in Africa used these people as slaves as well, and it would be useful to them to have their enemy out of the continent, and sent to a torturous place. So, the civil rights movement for Africans and African Americans began as Industrialization kicked in.

Primarily in northern America, where the fields are too thin and not fertile enough to grow anything, industries and factories took over. This is why the Civil War was fought between the North and South: the south had use for slaves, as the north did not quite have use for them.

Now we move to women. Again, with Industrialization, women had less to do in the house as washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and other labor saving devices were developed. This allowed women to have time to get a job outside of the house, which in turn increased women's influence in the work world an society altogether. This was a big factor as to how the feminist movement of the early 19th century into the early 20th century was able to gain power and influence. Women were no longer seen as subordinate to men (well, to less of an extent). They were now seen as equal, because people were realizing that women could do the same labor and work as a man could.

Now we move to the one that's really big today: the gay-marriage movement. I'm sure you all know my position on this issue, but I'm not here to discuss it, nor am I here to discuss why it should or should not happen. I don't mean to seem anti religion, but a lot of the movement to ban gay marriage did come from Christian (mainly Christian) zealots. You all know the argument people use the bible as an excuse for, so I won't go into that. Instead, I'll talk about how Christianity started to really take hold on politics, and soon society.

For the longest time, the USA's population have been primarily Christian, but they never really had much power in politics because of the divisions in the sectors of Christianity. As an example, the first Roman Catholic president was... George Washington? No, he was a deist. Maybe Abe Lincoln? Martin Van Buren? Actually, it was John F. Kennedy. It's because (so I've heard) that the different religious political parties decided to settle their differences, and agree that God exists, and they went from there. That's why John F. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president.

An added kicker was the USA's Cold War against the Soviet Union. The USA wanted to be as anti-USSR as possible. The USSR is known for being primarily atheist, because having a God (or gods) was seen as a way to suppress the people. Karl Marx, founder of Communism, famously said that religion was the "opium of the people,". So, a way to seem anti-USSR was to be Christian. That's why it wasn't until the 1950's that "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance you have to say every morning at school.

So, with zealots having political support behind them, states found themselves outlawing gay marriage. I'm not certain how long anti-gay marriage laws have been enacted, but the 50s sound like a reasonable date, but if I'm wrong, please do correct me. This is also why the gay rights movement is still going on today. Because of Christianity gaining a major foothold in American politics late in the 20th century, and with zealots bashing their beliefs on others' heads, the fight for gay rights (or gay marriage, however you see it) is still going on today.

So what's next possibly? Well, I don't think anyone really knows. Perhaps more rights for children? More rights for hermaphrodites? More rights for animals (which is still happening today, but even more so than now)? The thing that's difficult about answering it is that society and morals change in what seems months. These things change very rapidly, and for different reasons that to be honest I have no idea what they are. No matter how you lean on these issues, you can't argue that they weren't a huge historical marker in mankind. Or perhaps, with the strengthening of the feminist movement, humankind.