Allowing businesses to discriminate on religion is different from allowing them to do anything their religion says. If they're allowed to discriminate, they could not hire them but they could not take them and stone them to death based on biblical stories.

Shouldn't we let them discriminate, making it easier to identify bigots? Do we want to make these bigots grudgingly do business with us? There are plenty of people out in the marketplace who just want to provide goods and services and don't care about this political crap. I'd rather work with them. I'd probably rather work with apolitical vendors and customers, even over ones with politics that agree with mine.

In fact the right to free associate is a 1st Amendment right.

I have never heard of a business owner not providing basic health and safety due to religious belief...

Are you perhaps referring to the Hobby Lobby’s refusal to cow down to the mandate on the abortion pill? If so, yes I support them in this. If some employees do not then they should work somewhere more congenial to their own convictions.

Forcing business owners to act against their religious convictions is a clear violation of the separation of church and state. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot keep religion out of government without keeping government out of religion.

I hope it does pass, and I think it is a shame that this type of law is even necessary. If I own a business I have the right to choose whom I do and do not engage in trade with. Telling people they cannot come into my store because they are white, black, straight, gay, young or old is discrimination. Refusing to sell something to someone is my right.

You may or may not be a religious person, but that does not give you the right to compel others to act against their own beliefs.