Less politically-motivated employers, however, might well prefer their employees not to behave in ways that predictably lose them customers and goodwill. If someone comes into your shop and you laugh at them, that is not likely to be good for the business.

However, that could end up being a tragedy of the commons when it comes to incentives. Each time an employer fires someone for something like this, it personally benefits the employer (since the employer gains in customers and goodwill). But it also creates incentives for more potential customers to reduce their threshold for taking offense, which harms shops in general (and everyone). The magnitude of that effect may mean that overall, we're better off if nobody fired such employees than if everyone did, but since the gain to the employer benefits the employer while the loss is to a generalized group, employers will not stop doing this on their own initiative.