> There's no slippery slope here; the slippery slope is a fallacy for a reason. We can, in fact, draw a line between "refuse to do business with someone" and "let someone end up dead", and say that the former is perfectly acceptable and the latter is not. This is not an argument against freedom of association.
You've already got plenty of documented cases of e.g. person gets fired, loses medical coverage, has to start rationing insulin, dies. So the slippery slope is real.
> No, we don't. We recognize that choosing not to associate with someone because of some specific protected characteristics is discrimination on the basis of those specific characteristics, and we've decided to create narrow exceptions to freedom of association to prevent discrimination on the basis of those specific characteristics.
Right, and the rationale for that is that discrimination on the basis of those specific characteristics was so widespread that it crossed the line from freedom of association to denying people their rights. At least that's what I was told here.
(Also note that many lists of specific characteristics that should be protected, e.g. in the UN declaration of human rights, explicitly include political opinions in their list alongside things like race and religion; omitting that in US law seems like a historical oversight rather than real social consensus)
> That doesn't mean they should starve to death or get no medical care. Everyone should have food and medical care. By all means, let's fix that in our society, and have it not be tied to employment. That would solve many problems.
If and when you've fixed that, that will be a good argument for at-will firing. But until then it isn't.