Housing Rights, Religious Beliefs
The article (Nov. 22) on the state Supreme Court’s pending decision on the housing rights of unmarried couples fails to focus on the tremendous, potential importance of the court’s decision on many other groups protected in the areas of housing, education, private business transactions and employment by federal and California anti-discrimination laws.
People with disabilities represent one such group. Many people with disabilities must live with their paid attendants to whom they may or may not be related. They, too, could face discrimination by individuals such as Evelyn Smith, who enter the business of providing housing and then wish to exclude whole categories of customers based on religious belief.
More distressing, however, is the possibility that any Supreme Court decision for Smith could be extended to other businesses, which could then refuse goods, services or employment to the unmarried, people with disabilities, Jews, Chicanos, or others based on some good- (or bad-) faith religious belief.
All of these are reasons why we have asked the Supreme Court for permission to file an amicus (or friend of the court) brief to uphold the anti-discrimination laws against this attack.
DAVID H. RAIZMAN
Executive Director,
Western Law Center for Disability Rights
Los Angeles
* So Smith believes that she can defy the Constitution in order to discriminate on religious grounds. Yet her Presbyterian Church testified that she would not be committing a sin by renting to an unmarried couple. But wait, an “orthodox†Presbyterian Church says that the Bible supports her views.
That puts the rest of us in a bind, doesn’t it? Until these worthy theologians can come to an agreement as to whether renting a unit is or is not a sin, everyone else is going to have to wait and see if he or she still has a right to an apartment or a job. While these churchmen are deciding our rights for us based upon their conflicting views of sin, maybe they should also finally agree on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
That’s OK. As a result of this article, God came to me in a vision and told me not to rent my properties or give employment to any heterosexuals, unless they are unmarried couples. My reasons are based upon just as much reason as Smith’s.
PAUL TELLSTROM
West Hollywood
