Gloriously Incoherent America

A reader writes:

I think you did capture the essence of the truce and what makes the U.S. so great, bar one sentence:

"Given the huge differences between, say, a born-again evangelical in Georgia and a pot-smoking post-boomer in Seattle, no single cultural strait-jacket can ever hold America together."

Change "pot-smoking post-boomer in Seattle" to "pot-smoking post-boomer in Atlanta" and you really capture the U.S. - born-again evangelicals living in the same friggin' city (Atlanta) and working with and shopping with pot-smoking post-boomers. Hell, I was just wished "A blessed day" on the elevator by a complete stranger. 

What other U.S. city has simultaneously hosted the Southern Baptist National Convention and a Gay Pride of 300,000 attendees on the same weekend with a parade on the same street on the same day (June, 2005)? Granted, they both started at Civic Center and the Southern Baptist Parade went south on Peachtree and the Pride Parade north on Peachtree, but within a 20 block stretch on a major American city you had over 100,000 born-again baptists and 300,000 gay men and women with no major conflicts.

Yep: that's the dream. Equality under the law - and a million different ways to live. Why are so many so afraid of this?