Humans are unequal from birth - not just in their social situation, but in intelligence, motor skills, drive, looks, health. Eastern religions have different problems. If the state in which we are currently incarnated is the result of our past actions, then our present inequalities are merited, and we deserve to be treated unequally. Pantheism provides a far more solid basis for human equality. We are all equal parts of the divinity.
Every individual consciousness is an equal focus of awareness of the divinity.
Whatever our talents or failings, whatever our abilities or disabilities, we are all absolutely equal in these central respects. Recognition of this equality implies that we should treat other humans as ends and not means. We should respect their ends for themselves, that is, their legitimate life goals. Of course human goals are far more complex again than animal goals. These legitimate goals have been summarized in the body of international human rights, probably our greatest ethical achievement as a species, and the most inclusive common ethical system in existence in the world today.