A legally protected status is any characteristic which businesses and public schools are explicitly forbidden to discriminate against. You'd think that simply saying everyone has equal rights would inherently prohibit discrimination, but apparently that isn't the case. History has demonstrated that in order to ensure everyone is treated equally and fairly, it is necessary to create legally protected statuses for certain characteristics.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 defined the first five legally protected statuses, which are race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, and gender.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 created certain protections for the disabled.

In recent years, many cities have also added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected statuses, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013 (ENDA), which would enact nationwide employment protection for the LGBT community, recently passed in the Senate with a vote of 64 to 32, and is currently awaiting a vote in the House.

And obviously it wouldn't be respectful to wear a shirt like what you described anywhere, let alone in public, but I can't think of any way to allow business owners to prohibit such attire within their premises without also allowing bigoted business owners to prohibit supportive attire with the opposite message. So I figure it's better to just allow customers to wear whatever they want, though businesses may impose the condition that a customer's attire not be revealing (refusing to serve customers who aren't wearing shirts and/or shoes is perfectly acceptable).

Refusing to hire people of a certain race violates the rights of members of that race. Therefore, it should never be legal. The other things you mentioned may have a legitimate argument going for them, but discrimination does not. There is no justifiable argument for legalizing discrimination. None.

Also, eliminating non-discrimination laws would not eliminate debates about which groups should and should not be included in things, and I honestly don't see why you would think it would.

Affirmative Action is generally misunderstood by most people.

http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/11/19/...

First off, it should be noted that "skinhead" is not a legally protected status. Even so, as long as he was otherwise respectful and didn't harass or cause problems for any of the other customers or employees, I personally wouldn't kick him out.

Sure, you have the right to dislike whoever you want, for whatever reason you want. However, you do not have the right to persecute or discriminate against people you don't like if your reason for disliking them is because of a protected status like race or gender.

As for me, the only type of people I can't stand are jerks and assholes. Luckily, disruptive and abusive behavior are not legally protected statuses, so if I owned a business, I could kick out anyone who was causing mayhem or being otherwise disruptive. ;)

The important point to remember here is the distinction between a person's BEHAVIOR and a person's IDENTITY. While a business owner is fully entitled to refuse service to anyone because of the former, they cannot refuse service to someone because of the latter.

No, I just want people's rights to be protected. ;)

In regards to hiring employees, non-discrimination laws do not require business owners to give any special treatment or advantage to minorities or women. They simply require the business owners to give equal and fair consideration to them, and not immediately dismiss the applicant on the basis of a certain protected status.

There are certainly some laws with good intentions which have had very bad results. However, I do not believe anti-discrimination laws fit that description.

The purpose of government is to protect people's rights. People have a right to not be discriminated against. Therefore, it is perfectly justifiable for government to enact laws to protect that right.

Non-discrimination laws in regard to hiring employees is a different topic than non-discrimination laws in regard to serving customers.

While a bigot could potentially find a probable reason for not hiring a particular person because of prejudice, finding a probable cause for not serving a customer is next to impossible.

Also, your argument about how having to do more paperwork if you chose not to hire a minority or a woman doesn't seem to make sense. How does doing more paperwork if you DON'T hire someone make you LESS likely to hire that person? It seems more logical that you would want to hire them to avoid the paperwork.

Public sphere: The area of social life in which people and businesses interact with the general public.