Can a democratic government justifiably encourage or discourage identity groups?
A democratic government can do both. It can justifiably encourage identity groups by securing freedom of association for all individuals, and it also can discourage those groups that threaten to harm other people by ensuring that free association does not become a license to harm others. Identity groups can be prevented from excluding disfavored people from public accommodations or otherwise denying them equal educational or economic opportunity. Because identity groups are an important manifestation of individual freedom within democracies, and individual freedom is an essential part of democratic justice, democratic governments should tolerate a very wide range of identity groups, including those that are not themselves committed to democracy. Such toleration also supports those justice-friendly identity groups that fight against the negative stereotyping of minorities on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation. Such identity groups have been a prominent so