Protection from discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs

[ronburgundy]

No, the framers disagree with you. Absolutely nothing in the constitution says or implies that people or businesses cannot discriminate based upon a person's religious views. In fact, the 1st Amendment actually prohibits any legal requirements of government to treat religions differently, whether in favor of them or against them, since both are inherently discriminating on the basis of religion. And the general principles of personal liberty and free association are at odds with any law that would prevent individuals from acting differently towards people based upon their chosen beliefs and actions. The Constitution does not say or imply anything different about how a person or business must react to a member of the KKK than to a member of the RCC.

Yes, the framers thought that religion was generally stupid, warlike, and too influential in society. That is why the created a wall of separation to prevent religion from having any special status or influence on laws.

The part the founders agree with is that they specifically included religion in the 1st amendment. You could argue what extent that protection should be extended (and I would as well), but they did specifically include it.

Correct. The framers specifically made sure that religions could not use government to impose their ideology. Outside of specific Marxist states that did not exist until over a century after the framers, government restrictions on the personal religious practices come from one religion (or a subset) seeking to use government to impose it's religious practices and views on people and outlaw its religious competition. Thus, prohibiting government from specifically targeting specific religions (the free exercise clause) is the flipside of the coin (or of the "wall") of preventing religion from controlling government (the establishment clause). The primary purpose of framers like Jefferson who had a rather negative view of religion was not to protect religion from government but to protect government from religion and protect individual liberty and reason which they though should shape government and knew where frequent victims of organized religion. These goals are best accomplished if each individual's practices and beliefs related to religion could not be dictated or targeted by a government acting to promote a particular religion.

But not only does that not prohibit private individual's from discriminating on the basis of religion, it protects their right to do so. Associating with people of like-minded views is not only a core aspect of engaging in religious practices, but it is essential to more general founding principles of liberty, the pursuit of happiness, free assembly, etc..

In general, constitutional restrictions on government not only don't apply to individuals but are designed to protect individuals right to engage in such behaviors, especially on private property. The purpose is to give individuals the right to control their own lives and what they do with their person and property. Thus, while government cannot dictate individuals speech, individuals can determine what speech is allowed by people on their property. You can kick a person out of your house or bar for ranting about how great Trump is, but the Government cannot kick them out of a public park or punish them for saying it. Frighteningly, there are an increasing number of left-wing authoritarians who want the government to be able to kick people out of parks and punish them for what they say.

The prevailing legal principle is 'reasonable' accommodation, so technically, no work is 'forced' if it's really a pain in the ass.

Technically, such laws mean the government is forcing individuals to alter their private business practices so that other people who value their religion more than their job can still have that job without altering their religious practices. IOW, it is the government giving special rights to particular government recognized religious views and privileging those views over other views. It violates the intent of the Constitution and more importantly it violates basic principles of personal liberty, fairness, and equal treatment under the law, because the privilege applies only people who claim a reason that the government is willing to recognize as a legitimate religious reason (which has no objective definition).

The "reasonable" does not change this fact. It just means that there is a ambiguous, poorly defined limit on the extent of the business practices that an individual can be forced to alter by the government in its aim to privilege particular religious views. In fact, that ambiguous word only increases the government's arbitrary and unequal application of the law the law, favoring some religious views over others.