Diversity Dishonors Distinctiveness

Many years ago, when I was very young, my godmother, true to her office, would give me a present on my birthday. She did not anticipate that her beneficence would constitute a problem. My father, unfortunately, did. He told his sister that if she did not give presents to both of my brothers, she should not give a present to me. My aunt reluctantly complied, and nevermore did I receive a gift from my appointed godmother.

Despite being untutored in moral matters, I knew that there was something wrong with my father’s stance. He was telling his sister, in effect, that if she cannot be over-generous, then she should not be generous at all. It was a lose, lose situation. I lost a gift, and my father’s relationship with his sister was marred.

My brothers did not care. They were not going to be gifted anyway. By insisting on diversity, everyone was left out. More importantly, I thought, my godmother’s distinctive title was dishonored. She was not allowed to be what she was appointed to be. Let my brothers’ godmothers give them gifts.

I am not, in any way, suggesting that my father was being a trailblazer for diversity. He was lobbying for my brothers. He did not take into consideration the backlash. Nonetheless, the experiment with diversity has become more and more acceptable in our misguided times.

A Catholic daycare center has cancelled a Mother’s Day poem because it fails to reflect the “diversity” that has become today’s norm. To be fair, the center has also cancelled Father’s Day poems for the same reason. Motherhood, naturally, is distinctive. And it is precisely because of its distinctiveness that it is honored. Here is a case wherein diversity dishonors distinctiveness.

The Walt Disney Company, in its hyper-enthusiasm for diversity, replaced the traditional greeting “Ladies and Gentlemen” with the broader and more inclusive “Dreamers of all Ages.” The novel form of welcoming an audience may be more diverse and inclusive, but it ignores the distinctiveness of being a “lady” as well as being a “gentleman.” It is a way of losing much and gaining little.

Professor Anthony Esolen was happy to recognize the wonderful diversity we find in God’s creation. Unfortunately for him, his concept of diversity was not the politically correct one. Students and faculty members marched in protest against his atavistic view on the matter, virtually forcing him to leave and take a teaching position elsewhere. Thus, Providence College lost one of its bright lights, a scholar who provided the world with a new translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It did not matter to the diversitarians that his work was met with professional acclaim. They were not diverse enough to include him. Somehow, diversity is never sufficiently diverse, and it often ends up excluding people.

Professor Esolen wrote about his experience under the title “My College Succumbed to the Totalitarian Diversity Cult.” He protested, and rightly so, a form of diversity that was a direct attack on unity. He did not take to the streets and protest. He simply left for another school, one that had room for unity and collegiality.

The LGBTQ+ consortium has been increasing its membership as it works toward more and more diversity and inclusiveness. In Canada, we now have the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+. For the uninitiated, this elongated acronym stands for “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual.” The terminating plus sign indicates more acronyms to follow. Despite its prolixity, a sizeable percentage of the human population is excluded, including heterosexuals, Christians, and Jews.  One must blend into an amorphous grouping. Distinctiveness, standing alone, presumably, has no merit.

When we apply the diversity strategy to religion, we are obliged to conclude that polytheism is superior to monotheism. Christmas, therefore, would have to take a back seat to the worship of a diversity of gods. We do not want to offend Zeus worshippers by omitting him from the lexicon of gods. The more the merrier. The distinctiveness of Christ, nevertheless, is precisely what gives Him the authority, power, influence, and realism He has shown over the millennia that has greatly enlarged the number of Christians throughout the world. There can be only one Supreme Being.

How does the diversity nonsense gain a foothold in society? It begins with a peculiar blend of sentiment and forgetfulness. As in the example with my father, there is a sentiment to people who are seemingly left out. My father was concerned about his two sons being deprived of gifts. The second step is to rectify the problem while forgetting entirely about its direct consequences.

In my case, my godmother’s distinctiveness was not allowed and I was no longer a beneficiary of her generosity. A sound morality cannot be constructed on the basis of sentiment and forgetfulness. A sex educator once told his audience that they should not “burn their cathedral to fry an egg.” By this, he meant that they should not destroy what is sacred in them, their sexual integrity, for a moment of pleasure.

Diversity is overly sensitive to those who are left out. Its concern, however, is more mathematical than it is moral. But it becomes a cult when it fails to take into account how it dishonors distinctiveness and destroys unity. Let Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Children’s Day and Jackie Robinson Day take place at their own specific times—but not all at once.