Social, political, religious, or just generally ideas that are likely to make people uncomfortable are, generally, not good things to talk about at work. I shouldn't have to worry about my well meaning coworker wanting to save my soul, win my vote, or whatever. My coworker and I need to work together to solve the problems of our business - those other topics don't help us coordinate and might hurt our ability to coordinate by sowing dissension.

Until very recently it was well understood that certain topics are better off not discussed at work. This is not a dearth of curiosity but a surfeit of common sense.

Yes it is a workplace, but also a community of curious and open-minded people

Or at least used to be