Facts About Friends(Quakers) #28

Equality

If God is directly accessible to all persons, regardless of age, gender, race, nationality, economic, social or educational position – if every person is held equal in God’s love and has equal potential to be a channel for the revelation of God’s Truth – then all persons are to be equally valued.

There is that Seed, that Light – there is “that of God” in every person. For Friends this insight has meant, from the beginning, equality of the sexes and of races. In England and the English colonies this had to mean the end of privilege based on wealth or class. In Japan and Kenya, where the existing cultures made women little more than ‘domestic property’, it resulted in the establishment of Quaker schools for girls. It also formed the basis for opposition to slavery and the death penalty.