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Interesting points.
Starting from the end, I think you oversimplify the economics & laws angle. If humans were simple optimizers, then yes, they would all behave in a set of uniform, most optimal behaviors. There would be no new businesses, no new music, no new books, etc. Everyone in New York would just run laundromats, irish pubs, and sell hot dogs, to name a few things. But that's not really the case in reality--the laws, in the city and in most places in the US at least, are liberal enough for individuals to tinker, try new ideas, and find new ways of expressing themselves whether it's through commerce or art or whatever.
That's where I see the beauty of liberalism--let it provide a minimal set of laws that ensure more or less stability and... leave the rest up to people. In practice, given zoning and licensing and bureaucracy, this doesn't exist, but even in the much faded, weaker version of it that we have, we still see a ton of creative destruction. Much of it is garbage, but that's the cost of having monkey brains hitting two stones together until they find just the right stones that give sparks. This process, though, is made stronger by a steady stream of immigrants--whether internal or external--even though yes, after some n number of generations, they will likely meld in. However, by then, they will have very likely left a mark on the place.
I'm not sure I get the argument about surface diversity. If I set aside the EU angle, I don't see why it matters for a country to be able to be against gay rights? Like, if you live in Liberaltopia, there's nothing stopping you from not associating with gay people. There's nothing stopping you from forming a group with other people and having each other promise that you will not do gay things or associate with gays. There's also no size limit imposed on your group--it could be just your friends or half the country. Why would you want the state to interfere and set up some laws against gay people's freedoms? Surely, if gayness is in anyway bad, well, then in the free market of ideas, gayness will fade away while your non-gay group will grow and prosper?
This applies to other topics around enforcing culture.
I don't know how you made that jump.
There are no ways to enforce these shared norms. Imagine you live in an imaginary, hypothetical world where heroin, or murder, or dumping your garbage from the balcony is legal and normal. You and a group of friends agree that this should change, and you "form a group" and "promise" not to do that. So what? Your kids are still hooked on heroin, there is still garbage on the streets, and there is still a chance of getting murdered, because there are others who didn't agree and defectors.
You need a method to enforce that new norm. "Form a group" and "promise" is insufficient.
Gayness, specifically, was an example, of something the larger culture will impose on the sub-communities. You don't need to argue if it's good or bad.
I made it from this argument: " It might take generations to melt them, but it is happening nonetheless, because the laws are the same, the economics are the same for everyone."
In other words, if everyone is influenced by the same economic and political forces, then everyone is being pushed toward the same set of outcomes. If you leave that process going for a while, then humans become grey uniform goo that settled into some local maximum, hence no "new" or "different" things can be made.
Ah, you see, I am not arguing for not enforcing norms, but for a minimal set of open norms that allow individuals to express themselves, whether it be owning guns, being gay, partaking of the shrooms, etc. But I'm afraid that it's easy to misconstrue this as a call for post-modern, "reality is subjective" free-for-all, but allow me the benefit for the doubt. I am against that.
I feel like we're talking about two side of freedom. You're talking about "freedom from" as in: freedom from rotting in thy neighbor's garbage, freedom from having your kids being sold heroin, etc. I'm talking about "freedom to": freedom to stick your penis into another man's asshole, freedom to inhale smoke containing nicotine or THC, freedom to worship whatever deity/ies you wish, etc. Would you agree that this is the case?
The way I see it, the latter form of freedom requires the first one. But, for the latter form to truly blossom, the first one must be kept to a minimum. So yes, murder, rape, harming children* and other unilateral infringements of individual freedom must be outlawed. Totally agreed here. But not much more than that. Otherwise, you would increasingly stifle human expression.
This is where I see the beauty of a place like NYC. A basic set of laws ensures that people are not murdered (at least frequently) and that the garbage is (more or less; recently, sadly, it's less) taken care of. But because there is not much more than that, people can live in any weird way they want to, whether it's being a drag queen or an ultra-conservative jew. This, I believe, is core to "globalist liberalism", and something that is well expressed in the Bill or Rights, which I'm not bringing up for its legal standing but for its spirit, the spirit of freedom of expression as long as that expression isn't about yelling fire in a crowded theater or stoning unbelievers.
So, going back to the example you gave, the one about the EU and gay rights in an Eastern European country, let's first take away the label of gay rights, because that's just the outer layer that's not important. It could be anything else like ethnicity or abortion stance, or whatever. We basically have two minorities, the one that is arguing that a norm against X should instituted as law, and one arguing that X should be permitted. This might be the crux of the matter: X does not damage the commons. It is not a unilateral infringement of others' rights. Thus, I am against instituting a ban on X and for allowing to people to segregate into cultural groups aligned with what they think about X.
Now, aside from that, which Eastern European country are you thinking of? I happen to be from that part of the world and a little bit of the various cultures that people it.
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