Andrew Sullivan is a well-known and deservedly popular columnist who writes chiefly about the USA. Originally from England and a recent American citizen, he is a frequent cable TV pundit show guest; I enjoy his articles, columns and I read his weblog. He is also gay and a conservative. This is not a guy one can readily pigeon-hole.

One of Sullivan's Internet articles complained of "rights" which were not available to gay men. Puzzled as to which "rights" he was speaking of, I asked him, by e-mail, to name one.

His terse reply: the right to marry.

Piqued, I emailed back that I was unaware of any "right to marry" not available to him which "right" was available to, say, a straight like me. I suggested, for example, that, like me, he could marry any lesbian he could get to say "Yes". And that my right to marry was precisely as wide and as narrow as his. Of what "right" are you thus deprived, I queried?

More pique, this time from across the pond. Sully - the diminutive we Irish give all those named Sullivan - reminded me that his "right" to marry was like the old Constitutional proscription banning marriage between different races. Well now, this time Sully had blown it. There never was a Constitutional ban on racial inter-marriage. Some state constitutions contained that proposition but never the U.S. Constitution.

Back across the waters went this factual correction; no response from Sully. But I'm afraid I went a bit too far for his polity. I had lectured him a bit from the straight guys point of view. [After all, gays continually lecture straights as to what we ought to think and do so I felt turn-about was at least fair play but apparently not.]

Anyway, I told Sully that this time and on this issue, the gays and their supporters have gone over the line. I told him we straights have been amenable and flexible beyond what any alleged power group in history has been. But, no more. Not an inch more. I gave Sully and the world notice: No more; no more give while others only take.

Sully's position is not unfamiliar. He and all gays are victims. In America today, special interest groups standard (and most successful) approach to achieving their political objectives is to somehow, someway portray themselves as victims of our unfair, unjust, un-American culture. But gays as victims? Give me a break.

Gays are a substantially high earning group in America. Gay groups have cultural as well as political clout. In Hollywood, television and the theater, gays have a great deal of clout as they are extremely powerful in both general management and the creative areas. Casting couches are not just for starlets. Gays hold a level of power in entertainment which influences American society and culture to a degree highly disproportionate to their percentage of the population. Certainly their influence is disproportionate to their percentage of the population. Moreover, American entertainment influences the world, not just America. Thus, the gay life is celebrated world-wide. The problem is that its message is as unreal as the medium through which it is distributed.

Gay life is not gay. Nobody wants his or her children to be gay. Nobody raises his or her otherwise straight children to live the gay life. Whether being gay is a sensible choice, a biological compulsion or some combination is widely argued but not conclusively known. Whatever the truth of that though is not relevant to Sullivan's demand: may two men or two women have the capacity to legally marry as a man and a woman are married.

Notice I deliberately left out the "gay" and "lesbian" before men and women. After all, following Sullivan's logic, the mere fact of a gay or lesbian disposition should be irrelevant to the question. Who says two straight men cannot "marry"? Why, indeed, must they be gay. If the benefits of a same-sex "marriage" are so great as to demand legal status, why should such be limited to gays and lesbians? Well, of course, because they, gays and lesbians, are victims whereas straights, male or female, are the oppressors. You can't have the former without the latter.

Frankly, we have too many victim groups in this country. In addition to the gays and lesbians, there are black victims who need billions in reparation dollars so as not to feel dissed. Women, too, are victims. Yes, the wealthiest and longest-lived group in this country, women, are victims. Immigrants are victims; Arabs are new victims because Arabs killed 3,000 people in New york last year; Islamics are now victims simply because Islamics around the world scream they hate America; hispanics are such victims we had to invent a new race, hispanics, just to include them. And who are the oppressors? Well, who's left? White men; straight, white men. They are the oppressor; the oppressors are all-powerful, straight, white men.

Funny, I don't feel powerful. I've never had a slave; my maternal grand-parents were born in Europe and thus immigrants; I don't know an Islamic person and I'm not sure whether I know an Arab. Fortunately, I do know lots of women; my Mother was a woman, as are my three sweet daughters and their lovely mother, whom I have known since I was twelve. Some of my best friends have been women. But, somehow, intuitively, I acted so as to oppress them too.

It is all so stupid. I, for one, am tired of the game. If I'm so powerful as to be able to oppress all those folks and not even know it, then no more Mr. Nice Guy. I'm going to wield my power: marriage is for one man and one woman, gay or straight.

Take that Sully.