With the very recent announcement by President Barack Obama that he supports the idea of gay marriage, I began to think about whether civil rights do indeed have limits. Now this is not the easiest subject to write about as I am an African American male who knows about this nation’s sordid history as it concerns its treatment of African Americans and other minorities. But yet I have to ask whether civil rights do indeed have limits? If they don’t, I’m afraid that we are on a very slippery slope as it pertains to individual’s and group “rights.” At what point will we have the political will to deny a group which perceives that it has been discriminated against what they want? I say this because with his announcement for support of gay marriage, has President Obama cracked open the door for more groups to push for what they perceive to be their constitutional rights? For example, what will hinder pedophiles from coming forward and claiming that they too, like the gay community, have been denied their constitutional rights to have free (sexual) access to the children of their choice? You say that the possibility of this is absurd, but to that I respond that if someone had told you not too long ago that the president of the United States would openly advocate for gay marriage, you would have shaken your head in disbelief.