Tyranny of the minority

I was watching the Democratic party presidential candidates debate on CNN this morning while in the gym.  As is typical, the format and the questions were intended to generate sound bytes rather than any kind of meaningful dialogue or exploration of issues.   

I only watched about 1/2 hour of the debate, during which they spent at least 5-10 minutes discussing gays in the military and gay rights in general.   Now I don't really have anything against gay people as such (despite what CM might think).  It is a genetic variation that is beyond their control and so any sort of discrimination or hatred is just dumb.   In any event, I imagine the variation will be genetically altered/removed in most cases in future and so the population will diminish.   

The thing that I have a problem with is devoting a meaningful slice of time in the presidential debate to such a topic.  Who cares, other than gay people?   The gay population statistics are about as politically sensitive as they come but i guess the range is something like between 2% and 10%.   The 10% figure I believe was Kinsey's and has since been discredited and I haven't heard any serious higher figures tendered.  In any event, lets assume for the sake of argument that it is true; that 10% of all Americans are gay. 

So that would mean that conceivably 1 of 10 people watching the debate would care about this issue.  Can you imagine the incredibly wide range of issues facing the US which would effect more than 1 in 10 of the population?   The list would be very long and filled with issues that may fundamentally determine the shape of the next century and America's place within it.   

But no, instead they want to talk about gays in the military.   This is a giant misservice to the American people by the 4th estate (the media).  Even if the media has a much greater gay population than the population at large, even if the media was 100% gay, in a forum such as a presidential debate they should focus their attention on the giant issues that face the majority of the population, not a rather insignificant minority.