> There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone too far), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved.
There also is a contingent of people who say that equal treatment will not lead to social parity.
Ah, but this synonymy obscures the all-important difference between equality-of-opportunity and equality-of-outcome.
The former is a noble goal; the latter will likely lead to tyranny if implemented fully - or require tyranny for full implementation. (cf. Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron)
It was a satire of the attitude of American society towards communism during the cold war. The equality-by-outcome it presents is a strawman, precisely the strawman attributed by conservative politics to people who want to make society more equitable not just in "opportunity" but "outcome" as well. Vonnegut was a socialist and was quite warm to concepts such as "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
It's really hard to see how people miss this subtext when the main character of the story declares himself the emperor that all must obey and defies gravity. It's so cartoonishly heavy handed!
There also is a contingent of people who say that equal treatment will not lead to social parity.