Geez, you'd think America would have learned about civil rights right now.

An opposing lawyer objected, saying the juror “is or appears to be, could be, homosexual.”

That mattered, the lawyer said, because “the litigation involves AIDS medications” and “the incidence of AIDS in the homosexual community is well known, particularly gay men.”

In legal terms, the lawyer had just tried to raise a Batson challenge, named after a 1986 Supreme Court decision, Batson v. Kentucky. That decision recognized an exception to the general rule that peremptory challenges are completely discretionary. Race, the court said, cannot be the reason.

Eight years later, the court said that gender cannot be the reason, either. But it has never addressed sexual orientation.

On the other hand, there are plenty of unprotected classes in America.

I can get excluded from a jury -- or fired from a job -- for being fat.