There are fine constitutional lawyers who can argue back and forth about the Masterpiece Cakeshop case the Supreme Court heard last week, which will determine whether a Christian baker can decline to make a same-sex couple’s wedding cake. The court’s decision will either limit antidiscrimination law or limit First Amendment protections, so it’s not surprising that you can find deeply-footnoted legal arguments on both sides.

Nor is it surprising that I’m on the side of the baker. But I’m not going to make a constitutional argument for his rights. I’m going to make a political argument for why our country would be better off if he were left alone to bake his cakes.

The United States has the rules of a democratic republic but, increasingly, the cultural divisions of a sprawling Old World empire. We are governed by a Constitution, by the power of national majorities (or minorities with good luck in the Electoral College), and our laws are basically uniform across the land. But the scale and diversity of our country is vast and wild, encompassing immigrants from every part of the world and a native population riven by racial divisions, ideological wars, and a widening religious chasm.

Democratic life requires accepting that your own faction may be out of power roughly half the time. But in a culture this diverse and divided we trust our fellow citizens less, we share less with them, and we fear that any political defeat will leave our communities at their mercy, that if we lose power we will be routed and destroyed.