Why? If someone chooses to discriminate, why not let them suffer the consequences of lost potential revenue naturally?

It gives people who don't discriminate a chance to step in and gain market share.

It reminds me of the story of the bakery who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a gay couple. If I owned a bakery, I would put up a sign the next day saying "we will happily make cakes for gay couples".

The market will and does fail in the face of bigotry and discrimination; we've seen it from redlining to, well, now. Addressing market failures is the government's job.

Social stigma might blunt these effects but it's unlikely to eliminate them any time soon. I bet a lot of the people who (effectively) refuse to rent to black people don't think they're the slightest bit biased against black people. They're not keeping track of their individual decisions about rental applicants, and they can easily let their brains fill in the blanks to tell them there were all sorts of negative signals they picked up on when declining reservations.

You can be optimistic all you like that we'll "eventually get there" (I'm not) but optimism doesn't do much for people whose rights are being infringed today.

Because that's what it sounds like you are saying.

And, historically and into the present, there are cultural incentives (racist-ass racism) and economic incentives (risk aversion) to make that happen.

The next step is that the discriminating companies are out-competed and go out of business, leaving only non-discriminating companies. Conclusion: that's why there are no discriminating companies left!

This is a nice thought, but it barely works in theory and I've never seen it work in practice. That the consequent isn't observed regularly should tell you something about the assumptions we started with.

Depending on how bad the problem is you could end up with ghettos and other nasty things because of people who aren't able to get any sort of service.

Let's go for the obvious example; Jewish business owners should be forced to do business with neo-nazis?

But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.

So, currently, political affiliation is not a protected class, but it is considered a gray area by many.

Many may feel that political affiliation should be considered a protected class, however, if it becomes one, would that mean that Nazism is now protected?

Or coming at it from the other angle, as it stands, a religious extremist who believes that all members of a particular race/religion/orientation/etc should be put to death is currently protected. Why is that protected but Nazism not? Or does the protection become void as soon as you use it negatively towards another protected class? I'm genuinely asking.

Even though Nazism isn’t technically a religion, it seems very similar to religious extremism in many ways.

The comparison between Nazism and discrimination against black people is pretty creepy, though.

The experience of black people on Airbnb is: "Here is an amazing looking listing. I'm psyched to see if it's available for my trip. Click. Oh! It is available! How excellent. I'll plan accordingly." Then, a few hours later, when the owner has noticed the applicant's African American sounding name, the reservation is rescinded. It happens repeatedly, and there's nothing the renter can do about it.

The experience of the neo-Nazi is roughly the same, except the first time it happens they take the swastika out of their profile picture and from then on everything works peachy for them.

That's not being a protected class (which is a statutory issue), or even being a Con-law suspect or quasi-suspect class, that's simply application of the 1st Amendment (incorporated by the 14th). Its a whole different, unrelated area of protection.

> The experience of the neo-Nazi is roughly the same, except the first time it happens they take the swastika out of their profile picture and from then on everything works peachy for them.

Which pretty much also works for many victims of religious discrimination, but even so religion is (and political affiliation, Nazi or otherwise, is not) a protected class under fair housing law. So, insofar as its a difference between "Nazis" and "blacks", its a difference largely orthogonal to the issue of protected class status under fair housing laws.

That's a straightforward First Amendment issue.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

You can't prohibit neo-Nazis from peaceably assembling. You can't prohibit people wearing purple shirts from peaceably assembling. In neither case does that make neo-Nazis nor purple-shirt-wearers a protected class.

As tptacek notes, in many ways Nazism is protected through other means. But to directly answer your question, I think the answer is a firm maybe. Because it depends on whether Nazism is recognized as a political affiliation. Which means that that question, too, needs to be settled. (Maybe it is. I don't know.)

That said, I don't think political affiliation should be a protected class (it's something that isn't intrinsic in the way that race or gender identity is and, as tptacek mentioned, can be "taken off" at will) and I don't think it ever practically could be one so I don't think about it that often. Similarly, I also don't really think religious affiliation should be, except that in a practical sense it serves as a shield to protect minority groups as it currently stands so I don't mind the kluge.

> Or does the protection become void as soon as you use it negatively towards another protected class?

I am unclear on the interrelations that you posit, though I just asked a con-law friend for his take and (according to him) it depends on whether or not it is a place of "public accommodation"--retail stores, service businesses, educational institutions. In such a case, yes, it is not lawful to refuse to serve that customer.