The Christian basis…
…of the concept of “equal rights” should be obvious, and is inescapable:
. But, of course, [it is] not self-evident at all [that all are created equal]. It is, in fact, a purely mystical dogma inherited from the Christian teaching that “in Christ Jesus there is neiher Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” which was handed down to us by the old misogynist Paul. It’s also inherent in Genesis’ insistence that “In the image of God created he Man; male and female created he them.” That’s the sole basis for any claim of equality in dignity. Pagan men, being empiricists, saw no equal dignity for women and dealt with claims of equality by the good old fashioned empiricist method of beating up and killing women who got in the way — because they could. It turns out women are not, by and large, Buffy the Vampire Slayer but are documentably physically weaker than men as a rule. The only thing that ever turned around that fallen pagan male tendency was Christianity which, among other things, was inspired by the Cult of the Virgin to exalt women and which eventually played out its own internal imperative by overcoming the ancient pagan attitude toward women as inferiors.
Which is not to say that Christianity has a perfect record of treating women with the dignity that it knows — and knew before any other group — they are due.
But it is to say that the rights of women have only really flourished where faith in Christ flourished at some point.
And not just women, mind you, but all human beings; of all creeds or rational postulates, only the Christian profession affords one the basis upon which one can argue that all people — black, white, whatever — are “equal.”
There is no other suitable metric.
