Implicit to the demands for "Gay" rights is that gays are a minority group in America whose life-choices warrant all the protection given to any citizen. The same sort of civil rights movement which fought discrimination based on the color of skin is now being trotted out in defense of enforcing the right to personal choice, in this case, sexual choice. But the moral, historical, and cultural arguments that compelled a nation to take notice of equality of race is sorely lacking in the case for recognizing the gay minority. The kind of confusion about the meaning of a minority group is very evident, for example, in "The New Civil Rights Movement," a web-blog that advocates gay rights and gay marriage as an absolute freedom. As far as this group is concerned, "gays" are a persecuted minority who therefore deserve new legislation. The American Foundation for Equal Rights, as the title itself asserts, uses the same tactic. On what social or ethical grounds "gays" can be called a minority community is never defined. Instead, freedom is defined almost exclusively as freedom of choice.

We have come to believe that the act of making choices is intrinsically virtuous when, in fact, many of them are extrinsically vicious: pedophilia, prostitution, dealing in the pornography of minors, etc. Such "choices" are still unlawful, whether the crime is committed in one's own home or at the local mall. The reason is not hard to find: sexual activity does not carry a basic standard of principle upon which society should be governed. Black civil rights fought for exactly such a principle; not for the right of mere choice. This is a crucial point that seems to slip all too easily between all the rhetoric. If Mr. Obama thinks he is helping to bring freedom to the present-day victims of oppression, he'd better first discover the difference that exists between the foundation of civil rights and the advocacy of popular preference.

Perhaps the most disturbing symptom of gay minority rights is that social organizations (such as the Boy Scouts) are no longer permitted to regard gay behavior as a moral subject that deserves watchful and deliberate consideration. The arguments whether homosexuality is genetic, or whether gay parenting might harm or enable a child's development, are far from over. To take one example, academic researcher Mark Regerius at the University of Texas found that children raised by "gay" couple are not as well as adjusted as other children. Needless to say, his findings were immediately dismissed as biased and ill-founded, even though his methods were exonerated as completely legitimate.

As the dialogue heats up, reasoned arguments will continue to suffer. Specific personal dramas of "couples" whose rights to marry are being violated claim center stage as if the actual ethical debate over homosexual relations is really smokescreen. To suggest otherwise, one is presented with the conversation-stopper called "gay rights." Such an automatic categorization bypasses the pertinent fact that the choice about its minority status has already been made for us.