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I believe the statement "all people are equal" is false. Just look around you. Enough said.
I think the reason this statement has become an oft repeated mantra is due to a misunderstanding of what is at stake: Quite obviously from an ethical point of view, we do not with to use discrimination against people: they should be judged on their own merrits. All people should be given equal rights, and the same benefits and opportunities should be extended to them. This leads to the statement "all people should be treated equally".
Of course, such a statement is only a small logical fallacy away from "all people are actually born identical".
This naturally leads to what Steven Pinker refers to as the dogma of the Blank Slate: All people are born with indistinguishable brains, and are entirely shaped by society. Any denial of such a statement makes you a power-crazy racist (see the horrendous treatement of E. O. Wilson after Sociobiology). Any claim of a genetic influence on personality traits is seen as something which must be stamped out at all cost (apparently due to its immorality).
So no: people are not equal. Nor are they even born equal. But we should treat all human life with the respect it deserves, and give everyone an equal opportunity to prove themselves.
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