It's the people who give powers of regulation to the government and, unfortunately, those people too often outsource their own moral judgement to the law.

Yes. Discrimination is normal, and thanks to God for it.

I agree with the conclusions of this article.

However, like in the author's previous article, the principles upon which these conclusions are made are lacking: the "why"s are either not provided, or are nonsensical. Just an "I want it to be like this" is not a very convincing argument.

Let us have a closer look at the author's statement:
"Governments exist to protect life, liberty, and property, not to safeguard feelings or to police attitudes."

Is that really so?
Do governments even exist for a purpose, let alone a valid purpose?
Or did they just happened to be?

So what if the author would like governments to protect life, liberty and property, but not feelings? These are HIS preferences, while other people have different ones.

I believe that governments just evolved into what they are now, without any fundamental guiding principles, so this assignment of purpose to governments is only made after the fact, by both the author and others in accordance to their respective wishful thinking.

In Hinduism, discrimination ("Viveka" in Sanskrit) is considered a precious cornerstone for all spiritual progress, with emphasis on two forms:
1) Discriminating between Right and Wrong.
2) Discriminating between Truth and Untruth.

The subsequent spiritual cornerstone following discrimination ("Viveka") is "Vairagya", loosely translated as "dispassion" or "non-attachment": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W06YLVJyCmM

Once being able to tell the difference (i.e. discriminate) between right and wrong, one can gradually attain the necessary dispassion to abandon the wrong ways and follow the right ways, but if one is not even allowed to experiment and exercise their power of choice, then they will not be able to progress spiritually and attain Vairagya. Their outwardly actions might imitate Vairagya as per the state's laws, but they would not even obtain the prerequisite of Viveka.

Now this in brief is a fundamental "why", why governments ought not prohibit discrimination by individuals. This is not whim-based, this is based on 1000's of years old spiritual science, with plenty of resources available both on and off line.

The author contends that “In a free market, bigotry is bad for business”. Logically, that argument is appealing, but history shows that it is factually incorrect. Before equal pay laws, women were routinely paid less than men for doing the same job. Before anti-discrimination laws, some jobs were done almost exclusively, or even exclusively, by men. Women were sacked when they became pregnant or got married. Racial minorities regularly faced discrimination in employment. People with disabilities often found it incredibly hard to even get jobs, and those who got jobs often faced problems such as access when trying to perform them.

So legislation is needed to protect the liberal principles of equal treatment and opportunity.

Leyonhjelm’s argument is also slippery in that he twice conflates ideas that should be treated differently.

One is the term “discrimination”, which has broadly positive connotations in meaning discernment and good taste but negative ones in unfairly treating people differently because of the categories they happen to belong to. A preference for classical over rap music is not conceptually or morally the same as refusing to employ someone because they are Aboriginal.

The second is the use of the term “rights” and “freedoms” as applying to individuals and organisations. I believe individuals have natural rights that should be protected by law. Organisations have no intrinsic “rights”, only those that society agrees to confer on them in its own interests. For example, corporations have limited liability so individual owners cannot be sued if the company fails. On balance, this serves the public interest because investors are not deterred from investing in risky activities by the threat of personal bankruptcy. But it is not a “right” of the corporation.

Janis Joplin is free to pick her boyfriends on the basis of their looks. BHP cannot pick its train drivers on the basis of their gender.

Dear Rhian,

You seem to have picked up my thoughts!

Yes, individuals should be able to employ or not whoever they want, for whatever reasons if any, at their pleasure and for whatever pay and conditions freely agreed between them and the employed.

But as you pointed nicely, the same need not hold for companies and other incorporated organisations: "don't like it? don't incorporate!".

Janis Joplin should be free to pick not just boyfriends but also her home-cleaner, gardener, personal secretary or tutor for her children based on their gender, race, sexual orientation or whatever.

Had participation in society been genuinely voluntary, which sadly is not the case, then it would have been OK for society to impose anti-discrimination laws on Janis Joplin as well: "don't like it? don't join this society!".

"don't like it? don't join this society!".
Yuyutsu,
Some just don't get it no matter how much evidence is laid before them.

Dear Indyvidual,

«Some just don't get it no matter how much evidence is laid before them.»

Indeed: some don't get that it is not OK to forcibly count others in their society which they never freely agreed to join, then violently force them to follow its laws.