rodgerd

Well, there are two issues; one is the general principle - it's interesting to listen to people squeal when they feel the shoe's on the other foot. I've heard plenty of Christians whine "discrimination" for simply being put it a situation where their views are not automatically given prominence. Discrimination is no fun, and if you accept intervention on the general principle that your ability to get, hold, and advance in a job (for example) ought to be based on your ability to do it, you shouldn't be then trying to exclude people for non-job related reasons.

Put it another way: how many homophobic Christians would squeal like a stuck pig if they jost a job or a contract because of a capricious decision by a gay atheist who hates Christians?

The second is that while in a perfect world people would be let alone, we live in an imperfect world with entrenched power structures. Post slavery in the Southern US, the whites still had the bulk of land, money, and political power, and resurrected the Jim Crow laws. When those were struck down, the generally wealthier and more powerful whites still found ways to try to keep blacks from getting an fair shake.

So long as government intervention is aimed at giving people a fair shot based on their own merits, I don't see the problem, and anti-discrimination laws fall into this catgeory.

Come back and tell me when you're living on the streets because you can't get a job and no-one will rent a flat to you.