Diversity Is Not Enough. We Need Pluralism: New at Reason

It’s not just diversity that’s important for a healthy society but pluralism too.

A. Barton Hinkle writes:

It was bound to happen.

Ben Borgman, who is gay, recently ejected a group of Christian anti-abortion activists from his coffee shop in Seattle. He took great offense at one of their flyers, which he found outside, and understandably so: It graphically links gay pride with a dismembered fetus. He told them to get out in no uncertain terms (and in very colorful language).

“Heroic Gay Coffee Shop Owner Kicks Out Anti-LGBTQ Group,” exulted Out magazine. “Gay coffee shop owner throws out Christian zealots whose leaflets feature rainbow hands dripping blood,” is how Pink News put it.

The parallels with a current Supreme Court case are obvious. The justices soon will decide whether a Christian baker can decline to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Gay-rights activists say refusing to do so amounts to blatant discrimination that violates public accommodation laws. Defenders of Masterpiece Cakeshop say the owner, Jack Phillips, is not discriminating against gay people—he will gladly sell them all sorts of baked goods—but rather, exercising a First Amendment right not to create cakes that violate his religious convictions. (He won’t make Halloween cakes, either.)

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