Federal fair housing law protects LGBT couples, court rules for first time

[mikekle]

“The married couple who brought the case — Rachel Smith, a transgender woman, and Tonya Smith — were denied a rental townhouse along with their two children by a landlord who gave as a reason their “unique relationship,” they claimed in court.”

What ever compelled the Landlord to offer a reason for denying the couple?

And why on earth would he give THAT reason?

Yes, something fishy here, like maybe the whole thing was set up. Usually when a landlord does not want to rent to someone after first meeting them, they just do not call back and cut off all communication. Ive never heard of a landlord having to give a reason for the denial, even if they were required to, its very easy to just make something up.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

As a business owner, and also landlord, that all sounds good until you are sued for not renting your basement to two gay married men because your family lives upstairs.

I stopped renting our attached apartment once we got married and stuck to only free-standing rentals away from my home to avoid the intrusion of lifestyles I didn’t want my family exposed to - partying, excessive alcohol, loud music. Two men living together as partners would qualify.

Not having read the ruling, I can’t comment with any more specificity.

Um…Federal Fair Housing doesn’t apply if you have fewer than 5 units and live in one. Some states and cities are a little more strict, dropping the number to 3 or 4, but I’ve never heard of a jurisdiction that doesn’t allow you to discriminate when renting one on your own property where you currently live.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Yes, something fishy here, like maybe the whole thing was set up. Usually when a landlord does not want to rent to someone after first meeting them, they just do not call back and cut off all communication. Ive never heard of a landlord having to give a reason for the denial, even if they were required to, its very easy to just make something up.

Read my post above. A lesbian couple knows they’re likely to be discriminated against. It’s very likely they were ready to test the landlord. If you deny someone, you do have to provide a legal reason why if asked. A vague “not qualified” won’t work. Housing is not like employment in that regard.

And why wouldn’t he say that? Prior to this ruling, the law didn’t apply to gay couples.

 

[J_Peterson]

Yes, because renting to LGBT people is just like renting to a punk band.

/yawn

Besides, if you are renting to a punk band the place your renting is probably a dump. We had the punk kids staying in the windowless unfinished basement when I was younger and living with a bunch of people. Besides, punks are usually nice people. The politically active types are generally pacifists and vegan.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Yes, something fishy here, like maybe the whole thing was set up. Usually when a landlord does not want to rent to someone after first meeting them, they just do not call back and cut off all communication. Ive never heard of a landlord having to give a reason for the denial, even if they were required to, its very easy to just make something up.

You cannot “make something up”. People know their own credit, income, and background. They know if they’re going to qualify objectively and they also know that if something is “unavailable”, they can be put on a list. And if they think to Google housing discrimination, they’ll know they have a right to file a complaint and have the documentation of their denial and the landlord’s availability reviewed by the government. The Fair Housing Commission and HUD are nothing to mess with.

 

[starshiptrooper]

I’ll buy that argument when all of these anti-gay people start a campaign to make race, religion, and disability all grounds for discrimination.

If it is your property, you should be able to discriminate for any reason you feel like.

 

[SecretCatholic]

Businesses should be able to make their own decisions without interference from the government.

Exactly.

The whole premise of this law is wrong. Businesses as individuals should have a right to discriminate. Who you hire or rent to is your business. Does that mean I’m against blacks, Hispanics or even “gays”? No, not at all. I’m for all of them having the right to discriminate as well! If a black person does not want to rent to white people, then so be it! If a “gay” person does not want to rent to “straight” people, then so be it!

Some types of discrimination are sinful, while others are not. But government isn’t suppose to penalize sin. it’s supposed to penalize abuses of intrinsic rights and things like breaches of contracts. To be hired someplace or to live someplace is not an intrinsic right. You do not have some kind of intrinsic right to live at that place or to work at that place.

On the other hand, the right to life is certainly intrinsic. So if you choose to kill an innocent person, regardless of his race or “sexual identity”, then you should get to go to prison, and rightly so.

 

[signit]

In housing, there is. It’s much harder to discriminate in housing than elsewhere because the standards of objectivity and documentation are so much higher. The FHA is very strictly enforced. Fair Housing inspectors make random stops to mystery shop, files can be and are audited, and anytime there is a FH complaint, a company (not just the property) will be investigated.

Sometimes, people you turn down for legit reasons will suspect discrimination and send their own friend or family member in to test the property. If their friend is approved, you can bet you’ll get a formal complaint. If you’ve been fair and honest, no problem. But if you haven’t, the company and the individual employee are both liable.

If you deny someone an apartment, you must have objective documentation as to why - credit, income, or a background check. You must offer the same remedies (co-signer, higher deposit, pay the lease upfront) to everyone.

Most reputable companies use leasing software that easily maintains all of these records because it’s industry and government standard. If you call a leasing office and they tell you they have no one bedrooms available, and your friend calls 5 minutes later and is told they do, the software will show whether or not a hold was cancelled and something became available in that span. If it didn’t, or if the company just keeps bad records, they’re open to a lot of trouble. You have to keep records of what is available and when, down to the time of day.

I was an assistant property manager for several companies while I did my undergrad. Complaints, investigations, and legal penalties are all very common. Most complaints are bunk, but certainly not all. And it costs nothing to have a property investigated if you feel you’ve been discriminated against; no lawyering up required.

Interesting.

And, when it comes to employment, it’s just the opposite; it’s very difficult to prove.

In the U.S. it’s illegal to discriminate against people over 40, but employers do it frequently. They just don’t tell somebody “the reason you weren’t hired is that you’re ‘too old.’” Employers don’t even have to give you the reason why you weren’t hired, and most employers today don’t as it could be used against them in a discrimination action.

 

[SecretCatholic]

Regardless of how we feel about Same Sex “marriage” or unions, or about homosexuality and transgenderism, I think the ruling was right. There’s no reason to discriminate against them in housing.

Concur…

Amen!

Exactly!

There are proper ways of getting what you want. Discrimination in housing is not one of them.

THis ruling is just. No one should be descrimnated agaisnt for living quarters. Unless your a junky, have a sketchy past with other rentals, have a history of causing trouble… etc.

The ruling is dead WRONG!

And I’ll tell you why:
1.) The law DOES NOT include “LGBT” couples! It was NEVER intended to include this group when it was written in 1964. Judges cannot RE-MAKE because they “wish” that it included this or that. This was not a ruling, this was essentially a re-writing of the law without re-writing, but rather re-interpreting. In other words, Judge Raymond Moore simply decided to see something in the law that wasn’t there and declared it so. This is not a ruling. This is called being an activist judge and its wrong.

2.) As I have already explained, living or working at a particular place is not a God-given right. So why are people being FORCED to accept those that they do not want to accept onto their property?

3.) This whole thing presumes that people are actually “gay” and that that is part of the intrinsic identity of the person, like being black or Jamaican. But that’s not true at all! Being “gay” is entirely a choice just as being “emo” or a “hipster” or a “swinger”. It’s a lifestyle choice, not an intrinsic identity. There are MANY people with same-sex attraction who simply refuse to identify as “gay” and indeed, are NOT “gay”.

On every level this “ruling” is WRONG!

 

[ProdigalSun]

Yes, because renting to LGBT people is just like renting to a punk band.

/yawn

No of course it isn’t. what I’m saying is that you should not discrimate against them either!

 

[Rau]

… It’s very likely they were ready to test the landlord. If you deny someone, you do have to provide a legal reason why if asked. A vague “not qualified” won’t work. Housing is not like employment in that regard.

Asked by whom?

And why wouldn’t he say that? Prior to this ruling, the law didn’t apply to gay couples.

The usual response is that another candidate brought some advantage [insert any number of non-contentious factors.]. This landlord just seems naive.

 

[AClaire11]

Good ruling. If you don’t want to rent to certain groups of people despite their evident ability to pay, then don’t rent out your property.

 

[Rau]

… Being “gay” is entirely a choice just as being “emo” or a “hipster” or a “swinger”. It’s a lifestyle choice, not an intrinsic identity. There are MANY people with same-sex attraction who simply refuse to identify as “gay” and indeed, are NOT “gay”.

Living in a gay relationship is an arrangement the state chooses to support as one of a number of perfectly fine options (though morally we disagree).

I wouldn’t bother debating whether the judge erred by misapplying the law. The State would likely have no reason not to broaden the law so that it explicitly outlawed discrimination based on “orientation”. The question is whether the particular form of discrimination ought be allowed, particularly (but not solely) in light of my first point.

If I owned a rental property (and I don’t mean a granny flat in my back yard), I would find it hard to find a basis to rule out gay couples because they’re gay. The people need to live somewhere.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Asked by whom?
The usual response is that another candidate brought some advantage [insert any number of non-contentious factors.]. This landlord just seems naive.

Uhhhh…Again, you do not get to do that as a landlord. You have to have objective standards and rent to anyone who meets them, in the order they apply. “Someone else applied and…” will result in legal trouble. You cannot choose one potential resident over another. If you have two people who want the same place, the first person who gets the required documentation to you must be considered on their own merits using an across the board standard before you consider the next person for the unit. Smart landlords who don’t want to spend a fortune or be sued just use a standard credit check/background service because it’s cheap and easy.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I would hope someone who was refusing me an apartment would tell me that they ran my app, and I qualified, but another candidate…

I’d ask if the landlord would be willing to sign something to that effect, that I qualify but they like someone else on a subjective basis. I would assume it was my pregnancy, which is also illegal to discriminate on, and so would HUD. That’s why record keeping is crucial and there are volumes published on fair housing best practices every year. Without good records and a strict policy of chronological order, you open yourself up to a lot of legal trouble.

And for what it’s worth, most official claims are just angry people with bad credit or criminal histories; I don’t want to catastrophize this. Landlords and management companies are investigated all the time for absolutely nothing. Generally, it’s easy to prove you did nothing wrong. But when you don’t have that proof to fall back on and you can’t provide an explanation for why a black guy was denied in favor of a white applicant, or a family with a pregnant woman was skipped for one without, or in this case, a gay couple, things get lose-your-livelihood dicey. I certainly wouldn’t risk these games of thinking I’m smarter than the person I’m discriminating against as well as the agency specifically designed to sniff it out and punish it.

 

[Finite]

Yes, because renting to LGBT people is just like renting to a punk band.

/yawn

This made me spit out my drink. My keyboard is all wet!

 

[Finite]

Anyway, good ruling mostly. I have a gay son and he and his husband have run into minor issues before but nothing crazy. Although I can’t say I think housing laws should be identical to business ones.

I don’t believe any business has the right to discriminate against anyone (a baker shouldn’t be able to deny service to a gay couple, since the wedding cake they order is just a wedding cake, not a gay wedding cake). But for housing it’s a little more tricky.

I think if you’re just a person who is renting out a room in your home, you should absolutely be able to discriminate against anyone. It’s your home.

Not the same as businesses, which remain operational thanks to tax dollars that fund the infrastructure, water and electricity that the local citizens pay for, including LGBT ones.

 

[Rau]

Uhhhh…Again, you do not get to do that as a landlord. You have to have objective standards and rent to anyone who meets them, in the order they apply. “Someone else applied and…” will result in legal trouble. You cannot choose one potential resident over another. If you have two people who want the same place, the first person who gets the required documentation to you must be considered on their own merits using an across the board standard before you consider the next person for the unit. Smart landlords who don’t want to spend a fortune or be sued just use a standard credit check/background service because it’s cheap and easy.

I see - that is apparently a US specific legal framework. “First across the line gets the property” is not a universal position. In my jurisdiction, we take applications, weigh them up, and choose the best. There are also anti-discrimination laws (hard to enforce of course - the first past the post rule makes it much easier to enforce, though denies landlord’s reasonable freedoms - such as to select the best applicant.).

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I see - that is apparently a US specific legal framework. “First across the line gets the property” is not a universal position. In my jurisdiction, we take applications, weigh them up, and choose the best. There are also anti-discrimination laws (hard to enforce of course - the first past the post rule makes it much easier to enforce, though denies landlord’s reasonable freedoms - such as to select the best applicant.).

Ah, fair enough. Here, weighing candidates against each other like that is prohibited because people specifically do it to skirt anti discrimination laws. Historically, the US has had enormous problems with housing discrimination and races have been systematically kept out of entire neighborhoods. That’s a big part of why the law and enforcement is so stringent. Even seemingly innocuous things are prohibited; for instance, you can’t advertise your proximity to a church as a selling point. Or, if someone asks you about crime on the property, you can’t answer, not even honestly about the break ins you’ve had or your lack of reported crime. If a lonely old widow wants a 1 bedroom and you have three available, you have to let her pick solely on location. You can’t indicate that one of the apartments is on an especially quiet floor with several other older widows. I’m an (American) liberal, and it blows my mind how far housing anti discrimination goes. I’m not offended by it, and I see where it comes from, but it is really…intense, for lack of a better word.

Employment isn’t like that though, because unlike housing, there are a lot of soft, intangible, subjective factors that make one candidate better for a workplace than another, even if the other candidate has more experience or education. But with selling and renting homes, the idea is that anyone who can afford it and doesn’t have a record is just as qualified as the next guy to cut you a check.

 

[starshiptrooper]

Anyway, good ruling mostly. I have a gay son and he and his husband have run into minor issues before but nothing crazy. Although I can’t say I think housing laws should be identical to business ones.

I don’t believe any business has the right to discriminate against anyone (a baker shouldn’t be able to deny service to a gay couple, since the wedding cake they order is just a wedding cake, not a gay wedding cake). But for housing it’s a little more tricky.

So you are okay with Jews being forced to bake a Nazi cake?