If Jesus did say that you should do to others as you would have them do to you he was probably meaning that you should be compassionate toward others. I believe this to be morality in the highest order.

However, the problem with “do unto others” is that it is open to being distorted. The problem with it taken literally is that it can result in the opposite of what it seeks to achieve. Others are different from you and shouldn’t necessarily be treated the way you would like to be treated yourself. Others have different values, different attitudes, are psychologically and emotionally different, and so to do to them as you would have them do to you is too simplistic, maybe just plain wrong. It’s too primitive an idea and calls for an unimaginative uniformity in morals when morality is much more complicated than that.

Compassion is about looking into another person, trying to see how it is for them, and acting accordingly. That might mean treating them differently from the way you would wish to be treated yourself in a similar situation. An understanding of the particular case is what is required, otherwise the moral principle is in danger of degenerating into something very different from what was intended, eventually playing to dogmatic and inflexible types who wish to make absolute claims for how we should behave. Curious that’s how many Christians turn out to be. Not what Jesus had in mind at all.