Unity is a zero-sum game.

Civilized policy relies on society, which is a group of people bound together by a common bond or bonds.  But when policy’s aim is essentially to force people together to achieve some political prize offered to an interest group in the name of civilization, it might have the short-term effect of a benefit to the politician and the group, but it has the long-term effect of eviscerating any affection that the forced people might have otherwise had with the interest group.  This is one of the greatest criticisms of government: mandatory, artificial relationships squeeze out the possibility of healthy, organically created, voluntary relationships.

Think about marriage back when divorce was difficult.  Did it result in healthier marriages?  Probably not.  It resulted in more transactional marriages, and more stable households, and maybe some percentage of couples forced to remain together fell in love over time, which they might not have done if free to abandon the union earlier.  Mostly, though, I suspect that it resulted in a whole lot of resentment and bitterness that soured relationships which shouldn’t have been maintained but which for sociopolitical and religious reasons they couldn’t get out of.

The more politicians, pushed by special-interest or extremist groups, grab something for a particular racial, sexual or economic group, the more the memory of that taking poisons the relationship of that group with the grabbed-from.  The more this happens, the more society becomes like an unhappy marriage no one can escape.