Genesis describes God’s creation in six days beginning with “Let There Be Light”. And God saw that it was “good”. It was good in itself, but also good because it was unified. Scientists refer to this unity, this wonderful coordination of all the parts, as ecology”. The sun warms the earth, fish thrive in the waters, animals populate the land, air accommodates birds, and plants provide food. Creation is symphonic; all the parts blending together to form a unified whole. God creates a magnificently unified diversity of elements.
God rested on the seventh day. We may understand His resting as our opportunity to complete creation through love so that the diversity of human beings achieves a unity of brotherhood. God has given us the elements. It is up to us to bring them together in unified way.
History informs us, however, that human beings have not done well in achieving peace and harmony. Prejudice, discrimination, hatred, and war have divided nations and various ethnic groups. Universal brotherhood remains an ideal. Peace is still something on the far off horizon. A diversity of the parts persists, but without a unity of the whole. The wisdom needed to harmonize diversity with unity is sadly lacking.
The great illusion today is the unfounded belief that diversity alone will bring about unity and peace. The truth of the matter is that diversity alone leads directly to discrimination and chaos. An example of this illusion belongs to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose chairman is a President Biden appointee. In August of 2021, this group approved a set of diversity rules for corporate boards and directors. These rules require all companies trading on the Nasdaq stock market to have two “diverse directors,” including “at least one director who self-identifies as female and at least one director who self-identifies as an Underrepresented Minority of LGBTQ+”. Nasdaq is an acronym for the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (a computerized system for trading securities). Non-compliance with these rules could carry stiff penalties including delisting a company from Nasdaq, resulting in barring it from the world’s second-largest stock exchange.
To people who are not mesmerized by the word “diversity,” they realize that the application of these rules will lead to discrimination. For example, a fully qualified person—a biological male who accepts his natural sex—may not be hired because another biological male who identifies as a female is needed to fulfill the quota. This is clearly a case of discrimination against the first male and puts these rules in conflict with the U.S Constitution.
Arizona, Alabama, and fifteen other states (all Republican) are challenging these rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals. They cite a litany of abuses including a violation of the equal protection clause in the U.S Constitution as well as infractions against traditional state jurisdictions. These states join The Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment in their legal challenge of SEC. AFFBR is an organization dedicated to “promoting the recruitment of corporate board members without regard to race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual identity”. The president of this organization has stated that “The members of the Alliance for Fair Recruitment are grateful that the attorney generals of seventeen states recognize Nasdaq’s unfair and unconstitutional board quotas”.
It seems reasonable that a person should be hired for a certain post on the basis of his qualifications, and not because he or she happens to be of a certain race, sex, or gender. Simply stated, racial, sex or gender balancing is unconstitutional. On what reasonable grounds should a person receive preferential treatment over a more qualified applicant simply because the way he or she identifies himself or herself sexually? Filling out the diversity quota means not hiring applicants who are best qualified to do their jobs. It also ignores the potential conflicts that such a quota could initiate. Moreover, it might prove to be an incentive for a person to lie about his sex simply to improve his chances of being hired. Diversity rules; unity and harmony are not considered.
It is also presumptuous as to what characteristics constitute diversity. Some people are tall, others short; some are right handed, while others are left-handed. Do these differences represent diversity? A football team is both diverse and unified. Some players excel at passing, others at receiving. Some are adept at blocking, whereas, others are good at tackling. Each player is hired on the basis of his particular skill. Factors of race, sex, and gender are (and should be) irrelevant. Each player fulfilling his particular assignment is the formula for a unified team.
In God’s diverse creation, each being does what it does by its nature. Fish swim in the water, birds fly in the air, trees are planted in the ground. In Aesop’s fable, the horse who tried to sing like a nightingale lost his ability to whinny like a horse. There is an inevitable penalty attached to trying to do the impossible. By the same token, pretending that you are not who you are should not give an applicant an advantage in being hired. It is ironic, as Pope Benedict XVI once stated, that “The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned”.
Choosing what factors constitute diversity is highly arbitrary. Height, weight, intelligence, talent, and birthplace differentiate people. But to what end? Virtually all (if not actually all) bricklayers are men. Should women and women who identify as men be recruited to improve the quota? Diversity alone makes no sense. The diverse factors should not be uprooted from nature, nor should they be chosen independently of how they can contribute to a common purpose. God, in His wisdom created diversity within an overarching unity. When the ancient Greeks referred to the universe as a “cosmos,” they understood both its unity as well as its beauty. It is puzzling why so many people in responsible positions can believe that diversity, apart from nature, unity, or harmony, can bring about the very things it ignores. Diversity is not magic.
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Photo by Alex Jackman on Unsplash
