Just curious. I’m Not trying to step on toes here.
Short answer:
No.
D
Wouldn’t that imply that gays weren’t members of their parents’ race(s)?
Wouldn’t that imply that white gays weren’t white? And black gays weren’t black?
I’m gonna say no, homosexuality isn’t a race, it’s a sexual orientation.
No, but it considered a “class” for purposes of deciding discrimination, etc., as is age, disability, and gender.
“Race” is largely a cultural contstruct. So homosexuals are a “race” in a socieity which decides they are a race.
However our current notions of race involve (a) genetic inheritance, and (b) physical appearance. So we generally don’t consider homosexuals to constitute a distinct race.
I apologize for being so blunt, I had to make my OP short and to the point before I forgot. (I had to get off the cpu)
My question arose, because I was thinking earlier how the homosexual population could be classified. Silly me, I can’t remember my exact line of thinking. Maybe it will come to me later.
It’s a demographic, but it would come closest to being compatible with gender. (As for being used as a classification in non-discrimination laws, it’s used all too seldom.)
Yeah, but only for specific discrimination laws. That is, the definition of “homosexuals” as a class doesn’t exist in a vacuum, you have to look at each law you’re interested in to determine if homosexuals constitute a class.
“Race” is often used in many different contexts. It would only be in the most losely defined meaning of the word that gays could be considered a “race”. Perhaps along the lines of someone claiming modern Jews are a “race”. But even for Jews, at least one can claim some historical geographic origin. I can’t think of a use of the term “race” in which there isn’t a tie to some geographically (and hence, genetically) defined group.
If it turns out that gayness is genetic, then would one consider other cross-species genetic differences to be racial? Not to equate gayness with mental retardation, but would people with Down’s Syndrome be considered a “race”? I think not.
In the US, “homosexuality” is not a “class” with regard to civil rights or equal protection law. “Sexual orientation” is. In other words, in those jurisdictions which have anti-discrimination laws, it is just as illegal to discriminate against heterosexuals on the basis of sexual orientation as it is to discriminate against homosexuals. Just like “race,” “religion” and “sex” are classes, while for instance “black,” “Hindu” and “female” are not. Sexual orientation is a class everywhere, just not always a protected class.
The term that comes to mind is “minority group”.
If it were a race, you’d be able to figure out who wins. 
Seriously, though, it’s not an inheirited trait. It is probably inborn, congenital, genetic, or whatever the right word is for a trait one has at birth. There is still controversy over that point. People still rail at each other over whether sexual orientation is a choice. That’s another Pandora’s can of worms, and I doubt you intended to open it in this thread.
how so? Blacks can be a minority group, but so can women. Does that then mean that women can be classified as a “race” because they can also be considered a minority group? Just curious as to exactly what you mean by this post
I think awldune meant that, while homosexuals would not be a “race”, they would be a “minority group”.