Gays depriving the Boy Scouts of the opportunity to meet in public schools is not the only area where what started out as simple, good-hearted concern for the needs of the non-powerful has morphed into an environment where a hardened, self-interested clique of the once-marginalized now endeavors to browbeat the majority.

When I see the disdain of many liberals for the wishes, values, and sensibilities of anyone other than feminists, gays, and minorities, it’s painfully evident to me that the pendulum needs to swing back in the other direction.

This is true even in the cases of such originally well-intended programs as affirmative action.

It’s not that affirmative action didn’t make a useful contribution, in its day. But in today’s workplaces, there simply isn’t the kind of institutionalized discrimination that once prevailed. Yes, there are still far too many blacks and other minorities living in meager circumstances.   But a more appropriate way to address that is through measures that improve our schools, strengthen family structures, etc.--not through continued reliance on measures that simply reverse discrimination’s direction.

We’ve also done a valuable service in acknowledging the needs and abilities of women. But now that we’ve gone so far out of our way to make education girl-friendly that boys are failing in droves, and some of our colleges are already 60% female and only 40% male, it’s time to acknowledge that we’ve gone too far, and start thinking again about the needs of males as well as females.