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If they can protect one action (religion) they can protect others (homosexuality). I think the government should stick to the following: age, sex, race.

It's a tough one, and I don't think there is any perfect solution - such laws cut both ways, and opinion of the results will often reflect whose ox is getting gored at the moment.

For instance in the case of the conflict you note above AD laws provide at least some protection to individuals who disagree with an employer's policy on religious grounds.

Generally an employer can compel you to agree to abide with any legal company policy as a condition of employment - and does not have to accept an announcement that "I think that this policy is idiotic and immoral, but I'll do it anyway" as your response.

But the law carves out some exceptions for religious belief as long as it does not interfere with effective job performance.

One recent example is the AT&T Broadband employee who refused on principle to sign a "diversity policy" which covered homosexuals and was fired despite the fact that he stated that he would not discriminate against anyone and had received excellent performance evaluations. A Federal court ruled in his favor on grounds of religious discrimination and he was awarded $140,000 in damages.

http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion00898.shtml

I disagree with Buonanno's position, and I understand why AT&T took the stand they did. (Largely, to inoculate themselves against the possibility that they would be sued because of discrimination by their employees; perhaps Buonanno is the rare individual who can completely divorce his opinions from his actions – but many of us aren't.)

But I'm also very uneasy with the prospect of his losing his job despite excellent performance ratings, especially as it appears that his opinion only became an issue when he was asked to sign off on the diversity policy, and I find myself agreeing with the court.

Perhaps is a perfect world we would look exclusively at individual job performance (including refraining from discrimination in the workplace irrespective of opinion of such policies if that's a legal requirement of the job).

In this one we pretty much have to accept the messy compromise of attempting to find a practical balance between competing goods.

"In this one we pretty much have to accept the messy compromise of attempting to find a practical balance between competing goods."

Excellent post. That's one of the reasons why the backlash against "activist judges" scares me a little: I'd like "good sense" to win the day in some of these messy situations, at least in court.
In the case of AT&T, I don't think they actually needed anyone to sign a diversity form - but they listened to their blood-sucking lawyers and did it anyway. They were never in any legal trouble, but the lawyers got ahold of Director Such-n-such and convinced him that it was needed.