Comments on: D.C. Office of Human Rights launches campaign to fight LGBT housing discrimination http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/07/09/d-c-office-of-human-rights-launches-campaign-to-fight-lgbt-housing-discrimination/ the gay community's news source Sat, 25 May 2013 21:16:44 +0000 hourly 1 By: Bruce Majors http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/07/09/d-c-office-of-human-rights-launches-campaign-to-fight-lgbt-housing-discrimination/#comment-56786 Bruce Majors Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:47:01 +0000 http://www.washingtonblade.com/?p=44913#comment-56786 This sounds a little like bureaucrats looking for a way to justify their budgets and existence. I spent years showing gay people houses in Petworth and Columbia Heights and Logan where the non-gay residents were complaining that the gay people were moving in and displacing them. And where gay clients would ask me if a certain building or block or developer etc. was gay friendly or had gay people on it and I would have to tell them that I could not answer that question, because my answer would be “commercial speech” which has no First Amendment protection and I would lose my license, since our mandarin, overly expanded Fair Housing laws make it illegal for anyone working in loans or real estate to comment on anyone’s sexual orientation. I had one lesbian client say “oh no, you can tell me, that law is meant to protect me.” But in fact the law simply violates free speech and prohibits sharing information about sexual orientation. I told her I could answer any such question in Virginia, because there gays have escaped the classification of a second class of victim sub-citizens protected by fair housing. It is folly to assume that laws and bureaucracies do what you think they do or what you think they were intended to do.

And why shouldn’t a lesbian landlord be free to only rent to gays and lesbians if she wishes to do so?

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