Club hatin'

Was talking about this with someone the other day and wondered what you guys would think about it.
When I was in college two things happened that really pissed me off.
A group of guys got together and decided to start a club celebrating Celtic/Gaelic/Welsh heritage. We were told that it would be considered a hate group and were given a world of shit about it.
About the same time an all male gym was sued by a woman to allow her membership because they "excluded" her and she cited that it was sexist... but no one was suing Curves or even bringing them into it at the time, or since as far as I have seen.
Nor did anyone state that the NAACP, which had a huge presence on campus, was a hate group... and we never stated that we wanted to "further" anyone in any way, over anyone else the way they do.
We just wanted to celebrate the heritage of a few people, some, I might add that would be black Irish, Jimmy Hendricks would have been eligible.