Because we need to require status checks. Protected branches shouldn't be blocking merges from my understanding of githubs docs.
Looking closer, it looks like if you enable required status checks, it blocks if the branch is not up to date with master. So you can't have the required status checks feature, and the ability to merge out of date PR's.
Looking closer, it looks like if you enable required status checks, it blocks if the branch is not up to date with master. So you can't have the required status checks feature, and the ability to merge out of date PR's.