Terrible reasoning. Parental or marital status are also choices but are protected classes.

No, by that reason they should not be protected classes, as race, sex, sexual orientation, etc should be. Same with religion.

Also, why did you just create a throwaway just to make that comment?

Opinions and ideology might be mutable but they are not a choice. You get convinced into them, this is not something that you can just choose.

Anyway, I would argue that simply protecting immutable characteristics without also protecting certain actions does not make sense. For example it makes no sense to protect sexual orientation but not the action of holding your partner's hand in public or publically saying that you are of a certain orientation - after all your employer/person that you are doing business with would likely not know your sexual orientation without doing either of the above actions.

Ironically, political activities or affiliations is a protected class in California.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employmen...

That's what genuine, old school liberalism looks like, kids.

IIRC there is no case law on this, though if you know of any I'd appreciate sharing it.