Civil Rights Issue?

The exam I gave my government students started off with the question -

What is the difference between civil liberties and civil rights?

Answer: the former are individual freedoms, though at times contradictory to one another in the eyes of the courts, the latter, are equality under the law.

If the California Supreme Court would have released their ruling on the legalization of gay marriages sooner - I could have asked them to write an essay about it! The perfect case - ripe with the battle over civil liberties and civil rights.

There would have been much discussion!