I’m so DONE with people hiding behind religious objections to do such a thing when they don’t seem to have ANY OTHER religious objections consistent with those beliefs in other areas.

A person’s place of residence doesn’t have a lot of range in choices for the reasons Priya Lynn just listed. And the things landlords are required to check like you rent history, credit and job situation in being able to afford it, is ALL the landlord is required to know.

I remember when the laws that allowed landlords to discriminate against children was lifted back in the early 70′s.
Even though children, like pets, will damage the interiors, can be noisy and disruptive, the rental options are wide open.

No landlord should be permitted to do this to gay people whatsoever specifically because how is the property or OTHER neighbors adversely affected by gay people living within it in any way they can’t or don’t expect from HETERO people?

In doing this against this couple, this forces litigating against housing discrimination.

This is NOT religious discrimination whatsoever. Landlords cannot make such claims if their religion hasn’t been practiced consistently or distinctly enough in that regard.

A gay landlord might not necessarily know if they are renting to someone anti gay.

Considering that both religion and sexual orientation have no ‘signs’, that specify what a person is or their affiliations, putting the onus that gays and lesbians are wrong to expect to live wherever they choose is amazingly arrogant.

But irrational,unreasoned arrogance is exceptionally true of the religious anti gay.

The interesting thing is when the anti-discrimination bill was first proposed some city council members didn’t see a need for it. They weren’t opposed to it–they just assumed such a law was already on the books. Once they realized there was no such law they supported its passage.

They’ve been behind the campaign to repeal two ordinances passed by the city council last August which expanded the city’s non-discrimination laws to include gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, military status, veteran’s status, among others.

The owner stood up and declared he shouldn’t be forced to rent to people he didn’t like, ie homosexuals.

This campaign is only in its infancy, as the vote is in November.

As to the couple in question, here’s hoping they win the state lottery so they can buy the bastard out, then evist *his* ass for being straight!

Nobody is being forced to do business, period.

Simple fact is, if you’re going to do business, there are rules you have to follow. Don’t want to follow those rules, then perhaps another line of work is for you.

“This is not a violation of anyone’s rights. And why would you want to rent an apartment from someone who was homophobic?”

I agree you have a point here. Odds are that homophobic person will be using your rent money on homophobic causes, ergo you’d be paying for your own persecution.

Who is Darby? I can’t find any other mention of Darby in the article. It’s very disconcerting in an OCD kind of way.

Perhaps because its close to where you work, you really like it, or the rent is much better than you could get elsewhere.

I respect libertarian objections to forcing people to do business against their will. But I also believe in consistency.

Do you also think that this landlord should be able to refuse to rent to black people or Jews?