They still are in my libertarian opinion. For many civil rights means how we can oppress one group of people for the alleged benefit of another. It is really disgusting what has happened to this country.
Hardly anything new - White land owners oppressed non-land owners, Women, black Americans and Indian Americans in ways that benefited themselves for a century in this country. The original Veterans bills excluded black American veterans so that white Americans had more money available for benefits. Black Americans and Indians were excluded from the Homestead Act - a bill that was the basis of family land wealth to this day. The attempt to ban gay marriage was partially based on preventing gay couple's access to Federal money normally available to married couples. This "perfect" past that you seem to cling to never really existed - and in fact, we are closer to parity as far as rights now than we have been in the past.