I recently saw the following ad on craigslist:
$250 Gay man looking for room to rent
51 y.o. gay man looking for a cheap room to rent.I can clean your place and pay $250. a month. I do not smoke,drink, or do any drugs.My 10 y.o. Daughter stays with me on the weekends.I need to rent from a gay man or woman…
It goes on further, with contact information, credit status, vehicle status, etc., but none of that was important to this post, so I clipped it.
Now, getting over the fact that the ad initially appears to be selling a gay man for $250, rather than the gay man offering to PAY $250 to rent a room from either a gay man or woman, I thought the ad would also serve as a nice launching point to talk a little about fair housing laws.
Fair housing law protects a number of classes from being discriminated against. More specifically:
To refuse to sell or rent after the making of a bona fide offer, or to refuse to negotiate for the sale or rental of, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin.
Some states have enacted laws to protect against sexual orientation, however, Arizona is not currently one of them. Tucson enacted a law to protect against sexual orientation, however, to my knowledge it is the only city in Arizona with specific sexual orientation protection, and thus Phoenix and Scottsdale are not protected.
What does that mean? It means a landlord or property owner can refuse to rent or sell their home to someone that they learn is gay. Sad, but true. If you are renting a home from me, I can ask you if you are gay, and I can pass that information along to my client. If they chose not to rent to you under that basis, sadly, you would not be protected.
As a matter of general course, I consider myself to be fairly conservative, but with regard to sexual preference, I don’t believe, even by the smallest margin, that it is a choice. Some people do believe sexual orientation is a choice. Or, if not a choice, that same gender preferences should at least be suppressed. I don’t think that way, and if it came to siding with a tenant prospect or my landlord client, I would attempt to excuse myself from the transaction, and ask for my immediate release from the listing. The landlord may not grant it to me, but I would ask. Fortunately, while I have rented homes to gay couples, I’ve not had a landlord raise sexual preference as an issue. I sincerely hope this is a trend that never ends.
Getting back to this craigslist ad and fair housing, I should point out two important facts. First, because sexual orientation is NOT a protected class, it is completely fine to advertise your desire to sell or rent only to someone of a specific sexual orientation. And second, because the person advertising is presumed NOT to be a real estate professional, their advertisement does not need to adhere to fair housing law. Fair housing law only applies to real estate professionals.
As a general rule, individuals are allowed to discriminate on whatever they wish to, except under certain circumstances. An individual, that is not represented by a real estate professional, can decide that brunettes are not allowed; that people over 6’2″ tall are not allowed; or that lawyers are not allowed. They can decide that married couples with kids are not allowed; that an unmarried mother is not allowed; or even that jewish people are not allowed. Really, there are no limits as to the basis that individual owners can decide to choose a tenant or buyer for their property.
In the cases where there is a real estate professional involved in the transaction, fair housing protections are in place, and the protected classes of race, color, religion, gender, familiar status (which means are you single or married), and national origin cannot be the basis for which a denial to sell or rent a property is made.
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