Equality. What does this word mean? Is it the same as justice? Arguably not. Equality is giving everyone the same treatment. This may sound just, but take this situation into consideration. There are three people of various heights; one short, one medium height, and one tall. They are all standing behind a fence trying to watch what is going on on the other side of it. In order to aid their seeing capabilities, they are each given a single box to stand on to see over the fence. Each person had been given the same thing; therefore, it is equal.
However, I do not consider this the same as justice. The tall person was capable of seeing over the fence without aid, the medium height person is now capable of seeing over the fence with the aid of the box they were given, but what about the short person? They may have gotten the same treatment as the other two, but they are still incapable of seeing over the fence.
How is this an act of justice if the shorter person still cannot see? The solution? Give the box the tall person does not need to the shorter one. Once this is done, they will all be capable of seeing over the fence. Justice.
Now, this may seem like a ridiculous situation to use when comparing equality and justice. However, it makes a very debatable and heavy topic seem not so bad. Us human beings tend to mix up the terms equality and justice all the time. It is an easy mistake to make, but of course, they are completely different things, as proven by the given example. Just because we decide to treat everyone the same does not necessarily mean we are committing an act of justice, and that’s something a lot of people fail to understand.
Take the recent law of making gay marriage legal across the entire United States for example. This was indeed an act of equality, but it is up for debate as to if it is an act of justice. Even with the law in place, many states are finding ways to get around it. I have read articles about the abuse – whether it be physical and/or verbal – that some of these people go through. Even with the law in place, there are still gay couples out there that aren’t getting married because they don’t feel safe and don’t want to be harassed.
Personally, I do not find this to fit the term justice at all. They were given the same right as straight couples to get married, yet there are people out there who are treating these people like they don’t deserve to be treated justly. This situation is quite similar to how even when all of the people standing behind the fence were given a box, the shortest of the three still could not see over it.
How do we get it so people see equality and justice as two completely separate acts? It’ll take a lot of work. The two heavily relate, but they are easily confused with each other. The best thing we can do is give people simple examples like the one with the fence and three people. If they find it to be completely ridiculous, the next best thing we can try to do is explain to them how even when we give people equal treatment, it does not necessarily mean we are using justice. Equality is equal, but justice is making sure that it is equal in a fair and logical way.
