First it is said that protected classes do not apply?
So from all of the above it appears that "protected classes" are only protected some of the time and for so cases and not others.??
A male in the AGE class of 18-20 is not protected due to age, BUT apparently is protected due to sex?.....
Yes, it can be confusing. There are a slew of civil rights laws, federal and state. They define classes of persons from being discriminated against on certain bases, and they also address discrimination only in certain specified activities or transactions.
Most such laws prohibit discrimination on the bases of race, religion, and national origin. Most also protect one from being discriminated against on the basis of sex and, in many cases, sexual orientation. Certain civil rights laws also prohibit certain types of discrimination on the basis of age, if one is between age 40 and 70, or on the basis of disability. Sometimes there are overlaps and sometimes there aren't.
So a state law might prohibit discrimination in employment of the basis of age, but there might be no state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of age in the renting of residential property.
And there are usually exceptions. While an employer might be prohibited from discriminatory hiring on the basis sex, a health club can refuse to hire a man to hand out towels in the women's locker room.
One thing to remember about civil rights laws is that protecting someone's right to something results in diminishing someone else's right. So by protecting someone's right to buy a house free from discrimination because of his religion, we've reduced the homeowner's property right to dispose of his property as he sees fit. When rights rub against each other in that sort of way the legislature needs to decide priorities, and those priorities need to be politically palatable.
....But what the heck it all really doesn't matter, as the big box stores that sell guns need a FFL and as a FFL it seems they can deny sales to anyone anytime regardless of age race or sex. Several examples can be found.....
Here's the way all that works. I can't discriminate against you on a prohibited basis, but I can decline to deal with you if I have another, non-prohibited basis for doing so.
So I can't refuse to sell my house to someone because he's black, but I can refuse to sell my house to him because he can't show me evidence of adequate financing to meet the price. The prohibition on discrimination in the sale of residential property on the basis of race doesn't relieve the buyer, no matter what his race might be, of the obligation to satisfy whatever contingencies are part of the deal.
If I'm sued by X for not selling my house to him because he's black, he might have stated a
prima facie (on its face) case of discrimination. But I defend that suit by showing that he could not meet the contingencies, and his failure to do so relieved me, as a matter of contract, of an obligation to sell him the house.
Similarly, in the FFL situation, as entropy outlined in post 22, race would be a prohibited basis for an FFL to refuse a sale. But the FFL would have no obligation to complete the sale if he could state a non-prohibited basis, i. e., if under the circumstances he had reasonable cause to believe that the transaction would in some way violate the GCA.