I think you do have a right to discriminate based on religion, however you must recall that this is a two way street. If you have this right expect atheists to be discriminated against as well.
I recommend you fight the right to discriminate based on religion based on selfish considerations since most of the worlds employers are religious and Atheists are for example one of the most most disliked "religious" groups in the US.
Also my own position is that all forms of hiring discrimination by private enterprise should be allowed since the market should self correct if the standards by which they discriminate are unfair. It also gives a neat symmetry that Robin Hanson commented is lacking (discriminating against potential employers).
Also my own position is that all forms of hiring discrimination by private enterprise should be allowed since the market should self correct if the standards by which they discriminate are unfair.
Suppose it doesn't; that is, it turns out that on the long term arbitrarily excluding a certain minority of the populace from consideration isn't normally a big enough inefficiency to cause significant competitive disadvantage to prejudiced employers. Would that be enough to make you wish for some form of anti-discrimination measure?
(As a follow-up consideration - gur fgngrzrag vf dhvgr boivbhfyl gehr tvira n fhssvpvragyl fznyy zvabevgl.)
Let's say you are interviewing a candidate for a job. In casual conversation, the candidate mentions that he is a member of a rather old and prestigious country club. You've never heard the name of the club before.
You look up the country club afterwards, and are surprised by what you read. The club refuses membership to homosexuals. It revokes the membership of couples who use birth control. Leadership positions are reserved to unmarried males.
The candidate is otherwise competent. Under what conditions would you hire him? Would you want a law passed banning hiring discrimination based on country club membership?
(The country club is analogous to a nicer version of the Catholic church. I left out a couple bad things.)
Religious discrimination is illegal in many parts of the world, and I think that's probably a good thing. Still, keeping this at the object level (no meta-rules or veils of ignorance) it seems to me that discriminating against religious people is fine. I'm curious what other people think.