[jec1ny]

'There is a vast body of legal precedent including the 1964 civil rights act and the fair housing acts which have made it clear that the right to discriminate in those two matters is extremely tenuous.'

"Well yeah, that's true, but the Constitution doesn't require those laws, and it wouldn't be unconstitutional to remove those laws from the books. We have those laws because people like them, not because the Constitution mandates them."

I must respectfully disagree. In doing so I refer you to the following...

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Laws which protect or promote a legal right to discriminate are incompatible with the prohibition of denying someone the "equal protection of the laws."

You claim ..."but the Constitution doesn't require those laws,..."
But it does prohibit any laws which violate the equal protection clause.

[Sandy]

The 14th Amendment restrains actions of government, not actions of individuals. Laws aren't actions. If a government were forcing people to discriminate, that would be unconstitutional action. Encouraging discrimination would be an unconstitutional action too. Passively allowing it would not be.

My state doesn't have sexual-orientation anti-discrimination laws. Is that unconstitutional? Of course not. Yet by the Court's logic, it becomes unconstitutional as soon as we state in our constitution that we won't have those laws. We don't have the laws, and that's okay. Declaring via legislation that we won't have such laws, that would be okay too. But declaring in the constitution that we won't have the laws, that's forbidden. It's quite absurd really.