Too much equality?

An article entitled "I've had enough 'equality' for now" by Kristen Rudolph on the Institute for Religion and Democracy blog argues:

Women are (were) not kept from combat out of discrimination, but for myriad practical reasons, and in recognition of their unique feminine nature and dignity.

She acknowledges that for those who don't believe there are "unique, inherent differences between men and women," this will sound like "offensive, exclusionary nonsense."

Is equality in military combat too much equality, as Ms. Rudolph suggests?

Somehow I am reminded of a conference one of Art Brandenburg, one of my mentors (now in heaven) organized decades ago. The topic was GLBT inclusion in the church.

Because he wanted to be fair he invited a United Methodist district superintendent who was an opponent of the inclusion of gay people in the church to be one of the speakers.

The superintendent said something like this:

I think this all started with Martin Luther King. He convinced Black people that they ought to be equal. And that's okay. They should be equal.

But then women decided they should be equal too. And that's okay, too. They should be equal.  

Now gay people want to be equal too, and I guess that would be okay. 

But has anybody thought about this? If this continues everybody will want to be equal. What will we do then? Has anybody really thought through what we would do if everybody wanted to be equal?

 Every time we debate equality, I think about the assumptions behind that speech.