Whenever people tell me how “diverse” my neighborhood, Adams Morgan, is, I know they mean something other than diversity-i.e., we have a majority of approved minorities and liberal activists. Conservatives are hardly to be found in our rich mosaic of neighborhood diversity.


Tolerance is another word that is being redefined. After decades of preaching tolerance, this is the result:


“As the Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher reported, University of Maryland student Mia Lazarus recently went to buy some chips and juice at the Maryland Food Collective. The clerk at this grocery and sandwich shop in the student union read her t-shirt’s ‘Baltimore Zionist District’ and ‘I Stand for Israel’ slogans and then declared, ‘Your shirt offends me. I won’t ring you up.’


“Another coop cashier eventually sold Lazarus her chips and juice. But more instructive than Lazarus’s ability to finally buy her groceries has been the aftermath. After an hours-long, ‘teary’ meeting between Lazarus, her friends, and the collective, the coop agreed that it would serve any customer who wasn’t physically or verbally abusive, but that workers offended by a customer’s politics could arrange for another clerk to serve a patron.


“The president of the university’s Pro-Israel Terrapin Alliance opined, ‘The arrangement we worked out, while not ideal, is a reasonable accommodation. I would not want to force anyone to act against their own political beliefs.’


“Coop employees told the Post‘s Fisher that ‘no one should have to have contact with people whose views they find hurtful.'”