I'm on a breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colston Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Recently, the Senate Committee on Armed Services advanced the National Defense Act for 2025.

The proposal would, and I quote here, amend the Military Selective Service Act to require

the registration of women for selective service.

Now if the bill became law, every daughter upon turning 18 would be required to sign up for the military draft

just as every son must currently do.

This effort illustrates the confusion behind the contemporary call in our cultural moment

for equity, not equality.

You see, equality is fundamentally about dignity.

Men and women are equal and standing and their dignity and value

despite the significant differences between them.

This understanding of men and women is in fact grounded in Holy Scripture.

As described in the very first chapter of Genesis, God made people in his image male and female.

Both are made after his likeness. Each are before God equal. Equity, on the other

hand, grounds dignity and something else, namely in sameness. It demands that men and women are seen as identical.

Difference in this view implies inequality. The picture of humanity described in

holy scripture is one in which men and women share sameness as well as difference.

They are in this sense complementary to one another.

In order to fulfill their God-given purpose to fill and subdue the earth, men and women

partner. Both are required.

In fact, in sameness and difference, we are like the God whose image we bear.

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