I feel as though it was never the government ' s place . I ' m not sure what effect repealing it would have now . I disagree that the landscape would be dramatically differentworse for minorities in America today if we didn ' t have the civil rights act . Specifically as regards the topic of business discrimination , I think people forget exactly what it is we ' re talking about . The Jim Crow era wasn ' t simply a time of such rampant racism that no business owners would entertain the idea of integrating their clientele . On the contrary , racial segregation was enforced by law , in order the curb integration , which is the natural consequence of a free market . Keeping a business open is no easy task , and to the vast majority of business owners , the only color that matters is green . I believe that citizens should definitely have the right to be treated like people before they ' re treated as minorities . Then , frankly , you have an overly broad conception of rights . No one has a right to be held in any particular regard by other people . No one has a right to coerce a business owner to render service to them when he or she would rather not render that service . What you have is a right to be treated equally under the law , not an assurance that the law will make other people treat you equally . Why should someone ' s bigotry be protected and preserved when all men are created equal ? Because bigotry is a subjective term that is , even as we speak , at the center of a robust campaign of ever broadening redefinition . If you try to regulate bigotry , you give government an authority over private life that has a potentially infinite capacity for expansion . This is not a hypothetical problem , by the way . The legal capacity of the government to regulate private activity in the name of antidiscrimination protections is already taking on an absurd dimension . Regardless of how you feel about the issue of transgender bathroom usage , the Charlotte ordinance that kicked off the national debate provides no objective grounds for determining gender identitythe person must be taken at their word . That is to say that according to the letter of the law , if a man whom you know for certain is cisgender walks into the ladies room at your privately owned cafe right behind a little girl , you have to let him . Similarly , the proposed Canadian antidiscrimination bill that ' s in the news right now , Bill C 16 , essentially boils the central criteria for it ' s enforcement gender identity , expression , orientation , etc . down to a series of fashion statements . These might not seem like terribly consequential examples in and of themselves , and perhaps they aren ' t , but they do provide proof of concept . The doctrine of government enforced antidiscrimination has led directly to at least these two laws , which are only a few procedural steps away from enforceable implementation , and they ' re both completely devoid of limiting principles . How do you propose we protect the freedom of the individual to hold opinions contrary to government agendas if we continue on this path ?