OK, I see what's happening now. I was misunderstanding your issue as described. I originally thought you were saying the sorting was wrong when the 'Status' select item is required. I see that's not the case. The sorting works correctly for both cases (status required or optional). When the 'Status' field is required and it is a select field, it will default to something. In this case, it appears SharePoint is taking over and providing the default as the first item alphabetically. In this case, that just happens to be the second choice according to your 'relationshipListSortColumn' argument. To overcome this, you can force the selection to the first choice after all of the processing is complete, at the end of your '$(document).ready(function() ' (but still within it). Add the below line to your NewForm.aspx code to force the 'Status' field to select your first choice as the default and override whatever SharePoint selected or you.
$("select[title='Status']").children().first().attr("selected", "selected");
Don't add that line to your "EditForm.aspx or it will update every record you edit!
Geoff