Double Standards, Double Talk, and Multiple Troubles.

• Author: PERLMUTTER, PHILIP

More and more people are claiming to be the victims of double standards--blacks and whites, women and men, liberals and conservatives, isolationists and internationalists, teenagers and adults, and new and old immigrants. Again and again, one hears the plaint, "If I had been a (member of that group), I would not have been excluded." Or, conversely, "If they were (members of that group), they would have been punished for what they did."

To Webster, double standards involve principles that are applied differently and more rigorously to one group of people or circumstances than to another. In the present legal environment, the implication is that no one should be discriminated against because of race, religion, ethnicity, age, sex, sexual preference, or disability.

Why should boys receive more school funding for sports than girls? Why are blacks subjected to more police searches and arrests than whites? Why can't gays serve in the military or the ministry as straights do? Why are American troops sent to Serbia and Iraq to protect human rights but not to China and Russia? Why should executives in private industry be fired for sexual misbehavior but not high military officers or the president of the United States? Why does Africa receive less foreign aid than the Middle East?

In other areas, too, claims and counterclaims abound. Mexicans and Haitians criticize immigration policies for favoring Cubans and Russians. Non-American Indians resent American Indians' receiving fishing and gambling-casino concessions denied them. Catholics, evangelical Christians, and Muslims claim that the media, Hollywood, and politicians never make pejorative statements about other religious groups as they do about them. Some white males argue that they, not blacks or women, are denied an even break in today's society.

To apply double standards is morally wrong. Religious and secular schools teach the Golden Rule: an individual should treat others as he or she would want to be treated. That means no double-dealing or double-talking and no privilege, patronage, or preferences for certain people. It also means having one law, rule, standard, or norm for all citizens regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, age, sex, or sexual preference.

Such fairness is predicated on all individuals having certain universal and inalienable rights, the denial of which leads to xenophobia, slavery, tyranny, and chaos--and, more specifically, to racism, anti-Semitism...