A Cup. A Cake. A Line.
You walk into a coffee shop with your five-year-old son. You order a drink. You sit down. Maybe you play chess with him to pass the time.
You wear a blue hat. On it, a Star of David.
The man behind the counter asks if you are a Zionist.
And just like that, the space changes. Your son watches as you are told to leave. Watches as the man shouts at you, calls you a bitch. Watches as the door closes behind you.
That happened last October in Oakland. It is now the subject of a civil-rights lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. A Palestinian-owned coffee shop. A Jewish customer. A five-year-old boy in the middle.
There is something about public places. They aren’t meant to love us. They aren’t meant to hate us either. A coffee shop, a bakery, a bus, a courthouse—these are the neutral spaces that keep a society whole. You are served not because of who you are, but despite it.
And when that breaks, everything else becomes fair game.
In 2012, a baker in Colorado refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. He said it violated his religious beliefs. The couple sued. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court.
The Court ruled in favor of the baker—narrowly, procedurally. It said the state commission had shown hostility toward religion. It left the larger question untouched: Can a business open to the public refuse service to someone because of who they are?
We still don’t have an answer.
Which means we are left with the cracks. And through those cracks, things seep in. First, it is a cake. Then it is a cup of coffee. Then it is a man in a blue hat, standing in front of his son, being told he doesn’t belong.
There is a line we must see here, before it disappears.
It is possible to oppose a war without stripping dignity from those who wear its symbols.
It is possible to hold religious beliefs without denying someone a place at the counter.
It is possible to grieve for Gaza and still say: a child should not have to watch his father be humiliated in a coffee shop.
But when ideology begins to fill every space, we forget this. We turn ordinary acts—such as baking a cake or serving a drink—into purity tests. And if the person in front of us fails, we grant ourselves the right to shun them. Or worse.
I suspect the baker in Colorado and the owner of the Oakland coffee shop would say they acted from principle. One from faith. The other from justice.
But this is where principle becomes poison. The moment it demands that another human being be turned away.
A public space is a fragile thing. It can survive debate. It can survive a protest. It cannot survive this creeping habit of exclusion.
Because if every counter becomes a battleground, and every seat a statement, there will be no public left. Only tribes. Only walls.
And we will find ourselves raising children in a world where they no longer trust a place as simple as a coffee shop.
That should haunt us more than any court ruling.