My business is very much an extension of my home and of my person. There should be no controlling factor other than me. If my mindset causes me to do things that harm my ability to conduct business, invariably I will pay for that in the open market, causing failure, and that should be punishment enough.
That is very much my view as well.
However, history taught me that, a very short time I was born, businesses run by racists did not suffer and fail. I am convinced they would today, and I know they wouldn't get any of my business. But something was different back then.
I don't think racists made up a large percentage of the population. if they did, since so many people alive before the civil rights era are still with us, I should see a lot more racists than I do. Government may have forced them to change their actions, but I don't believe it can change their minds. Therefore, I believe that there wasn't a lot of racism, but a lot of complacency. And I believe that the civil rights laws have crushed that complacency, and that's a good thing.
Could we get rid of them now (as if government would ever give up any authority to tell us how to act)? Should we keep them until everyone who lived before them has passed? Maybe a generation or two after that? Do I support giving up a bit of liberty to stomp out something that I abhor? Do I have the right to compel you to do so? Do we go back to an ugly world in the hopes that people will come around on their own, eventually? These are the questions which pose a serious potential thorn in the side of my philosophy.
All I can say for sure is that it disgusts me that such laws might be (or have been) "necessary", and I hope one day they live be laughed at as frivolity.