Conservatives Denied Housing Over Political Beliefs, Is This Illegal?
Conservatives Denied Housing Over Political Beliefs, Is This Illegal?After a story went viral of a woman's roommates searching her room after finding a MAGA hat people cried foul calling this clear political discrimination. But a second story has emerged this time in Washington DC after a former Fox News staffer revealed she was denied housing twice over her job and her personal politics.What made this interesting is that political affiliation is a protected human right in DC and this might actually be illegal.For left wing and right wing activists, I think the issue is pointless as both probably would not want to live together anyway. But we do have evidence showing that Democrats and Republicans are more likely to mistrust each other over politics than over other factors such as race or gender.
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Just about a month ago, we heard the story of a woman whose roommates found her Trump supporter hat, and because of that, decided to search her bedroom, where they ultimately found her firearms.
They contacted law enforcement, who said they were all properly licensed and stored, and thus no laws had been broken.
However, they still insisted this woman move out.
Many people said this wasn't fair, it was political discrimination.
But because it had to do with firearms, it's a bit complicated.
But another story has emerged in the past week about a former Fox News staffer and conservative who revealed on Twitter she had been denied housing twice because of her political affiliation.
What made this story interesting is that in Washington, D.C., political affiliation is a protected human right.
Many people said this, in fact, might be illegal.
Unfortunately, based on these circumstances, it looks like it isn't.
But political discrimination is on the rise, one study reveals.
So today, Let's take a look at what's going on with these stories about housing discrimination based on political affiliation, and look at the study that talks about the rise of political discrimination.
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From town hall, conservative woman denied housing in DC due to political views.
Who said that conservatives aren't discriminated against for their political beliefs?
Pardes Saleh, a conservative who has worked for Fox News and is now a graduate student, shared an email today she received explaining why she was denied approval to rent an apartment in Washington DC.
In an email, the owner-tenant writes to Celeste, stating, After perusing your various journalistic and social media posts, it's pretty clear your political views are diametrically opposed to ours, and we hate Fox.
Celeste posted that email to Twitter this morning.
She said, My second time this week being rejected from an apartment slash house in D.C.
because I worked at Fox.
And the email ends by saying, Hopefully you will find a place that will be a good fit best.
An hour later, Soleil in a video posted to Twitter explained that her political views aren't far right-wing or that crazy.
Soleil then expressed the fact that she didn't want to be seen as a victim, but rather show what occurred when searching for housing in D.C.
as a conservative.
She went on to explain that people who are claiming to be pro-love Don't show tolerance to varying political opinions.
She told Town Hall that she was quote looking to downsize to an apartment with roommates in order to save money on rent but it seems a lot of people who live in my area wouldn't want a roommate with my background or political views.
It's not the end of the world and I'm not a victim.
Have great friends in the area but this stuff could get annoying sometimes.
Reactions from Twitter were swift, with many expressing outrage.
The best response to the tweet was a picture of the fair housing laws in D.C., while also pushing back against liberal tolerance.
Many people said, you know what?
This sounds illegal.
Because according to the D.C.
Office of Human Rights, Political affiliation is a protected class.
In fact, when activists showed up to Tucker Carlson's home chanting about his political views, it was actually deemed a hate crime, or at least was being investigated as such.
Because again, in Washington, D.C., your political affiliation is protected by human rights law.
But not just that.
Your source of income is also protected.
And that email made reference to her politics and that she worked for Fox News.
It says, source of income applies to housing, public accommodations, and educational institutions, the origination of a person's finances.
So the question that everyone was asking, is this in fact illegal?
And unfortunately for those who don't want to be discriminated against, it's not illegal.
It's perfectly legal.
See, human rights law only works insofar as you are not sharing a certain living space like a kitchen or a bathroom.
Many people have complained for a long time.
You'll see on Craigslist many ads saying women only.
And they'll argue this is a violation of human rights law because you can't discriminate based on gender.
However, this is not a landlord renting a property.
It's an individual seeking a roommate and they're actually allowed to do it.
And with many people today claiming this is political discrimination against conservatives, a similar story emerged years ago about conservatives saying no leftists, no occupiers, and once again, it was determined to be completely legal.
In 2012, the Washington City paper ran this story, Bro Roommates Ad, Not a Violation of Housing Law.
They referenced a renaissance bro ad on Craigslist, noting that it delighted and shocked the local internet, even earning a pair-a-date offer.
But it got me wondering, did the bro's insistence that women not apply qualify as housing discrimination by gender?
The issue of Craigslist ads as gender discrimination has come up in the city paper in the past.
In 2010, Amanda Hess nailed a previous ad for a Mount Pleasant temple to broseidon for gender discrimination, among other transgressions.
D.C.
law prohibits posting ads for housing that discriminate on gender.
But according to Elliot Imse, a spokesman for the Office of Human Rights, the Renaissance Bro ad is, while sleazy, not illegal.
The prohibitions against differentiating applicants based on gender does not apply when you are sharing a living space, such as a kitchen or a bathroom, he writes in an email.
So party on, Bro Peck.
You're on the right side of the law, if not good taste.
Now, I do want to make sure it's clear that the initial story I brought up about the woman and her firearms took place at Harvard University, which was likely in Cambridge or the Boston area.
While many people were upset that this woman was facing this kind of discrimination simply for being a conservative, she doesn't have the same kind of protections you would if you were in Washington, D.C.
But as we know now, when you're applying to be a roommate, you actually don't have any protections.
Maybe there are some, but for the most part, as it pertains to political affiliation, you will not be protected if someone just doesn't want to live with you.
And to be honest, if you were a conservative, would you really want to live with someone who hated your guts?
It's probably not a good idea either.
When it comes to the story about firearms, it is a bit more complicated, because it's kind of ridiculous they searched this woman's room.
But even outside of political affiliation, some people might not be comfortable living with someone who owns weapons.
Similar stories about political discrimination have been popping up over the past year.
This one, for instance, from Fortune.
It's totally legal for a bar to discriminate against Trump supporters.
NYC judge rules.
The story talks about a man who was thrown out of a bar for wearing a Make America Great Again hat.
Apparently, he filed a lawsuit.
Following the incident, Piatek sued the bar for offending his sense of being American.
When the Happiest Hours lawyer noted that only religious beliefs are protected under city and state discrimination laws, Piatek attempted to pivot, suggesting that his hat reflected a spiritual belief, and argued that he has donned the hat in spiritual tribute while visiting the 9-11 memorial prior to going to the bar.
The judge evidently didn't buy the argument.
He called the incident petty and tossed the lawsuit, noting that the law does not protect against political discrimination.
Here, the claim that the plaintiff was not served and eventually escorted out of the bar because of his perceived support for President Trump is not outrageous conduct, the judge ruled.
This may not be the case in Washington, D.C., where they note protected traits for housing, employment, public accommodations, and educational institutions does in fact include political affiliation.
And going to a bar and being served a drink is a public accommodation.
In Washington, D.C., if there was a baker and you showed up and said you wanted a custom wedding cake that said, Make America Great Again on it with a big picture of Trump, they could not deny you the service.
To a certain extent.
You've got to recognize that judges interpret the law.
And in D.C., there's a really good reason why political affiliation is protected.
Because we send people from all over the country to Washington, D.C.
to work on behalf of the public.
Could you imagine if a Republican went to a bakery in D.C.
proper, like next to one of the Senate buildings, and they said, we don't serve Republicans?
Well, that's a huge problem considering we're trying to run a functioning government here, and people don't necessarily choose to live in D.C.
when they get elected.
They have to be there for work.
So discriminating based on political affiliation in D.C.
is a really bad thing.
It makes sense why that law is in place.
Now, before I move on, I want to point out some interesting rumors.
Many journalists who are covering on-the-ground battles between, say, Antifa and white nationalists or the alt-right, have brought up that there are many people associated with, say, Unite the Right and the alt-right, who are looking to move to Washington, D.C.
specifically because of this protection.
That would mean these individuals who hold alt-right views or white nationalist views could not be discriminated against because of their political beliefs.
But the reality is, discrimination on the grounds of political ideas prevails over other types.
This is from fizz.org, October 5th, 2017, University of the Basque Country.
They say, following the gradual retreat of other stereotypes, political ideas are becoming established as a significant reason for arousing trust or mistrust between people.
This is one of the main conclusions in an article published in the European Journal of Political Research titled, The Tie That Divides, Cross-National Evidence of the Primacy of Partyism.
Basically, in the study, they found that different cultures have a similar effect occurring, where people don't actually discriminate based on race.
They found that someone's ethnicity or race wasn't that much of a factor in whether or not they would trust another person, but political affiliation was overwhelmingly causing mistrust between two factions on opposing sides of each other.
The reason for it, they say, is that there are social norms against any kind of discrimination, but not against partisan discrimination.
Thus, unlike what happens with racial or gender discrimination, which are severely penalized by social norms, the corresponding pressures in the case of partisan discrimination do not exist.
As we can see every day in the political debates and chat shows in Spain, and in other countries in our area, Hostility toward and prejudice against those who do not share political ideas are fully accepted socially, and they barely make us blush.
And the fact that the rhetoric of most of the leaders of the parties makes it seem perfectly acceptable to despise political opponents.
And one more honorable mention that we've seen in the past few months.
OKCupid, which is a dating website, found a massive spike in politics affecting dating.
The site analyzed more than 300,000 answers from OkCupid user dating profiles and found that 85% of millennial men and women said voting was extremely or very important to them.
Both millennial men and women said they would prefer a partner who votes for the same party as they do, at 73% and 56% respectively.
OkCupid published just about a year ago.
Daters got woke in 2017.
Not only did the use of woke increase by 50%, but politics and social issues were also at the forefront of conversation this year.
It's extremely likely that we are going to see political discrimination start affecting people on greater and greater levels.
And that's where things get pretty worrisome.
We already saw one guy try to claim that supporting Trump was a spiritual belief, but a judge threw that out.
And that's the point of courts, determine whether or not you're being honest.
But as political discrimination escalates, you're going to find people have no choice but to essentially segregate.
If people can't live together, if they can't even go to the local bakery, if they can't work together and they don't want to be near each other, they won't date.
The divide is getting worse.
And it's something I've talked about a lot.
That seems like the partisan divide is increasingly getting worse.
And what I can see is an expansion of left-wing identitarianism.
And that is particularly worrying when you realize these are people who genuinely believe only a white man can become president for the Democrats.
Michael Avenatti said this at Time Magazine.
There was a poll done where USA Today published the results of what Democrats were looking for in a candidate, and one man said they must choose a white male.
They've embraced this identitarianism so wholeheartedly, they genuinely believe they need white privilege now to win the presidency.
I guess they forgot that Barack Obama won twice.
But I would say this is more evidence to suggest the culture war is expanding.
And it's quite possible it expands into a situation where we can't actually solve these problems or live together.
And I find that particularly worrying.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about this political discrimination?
Because admittedly, it does go both ways.
It really does.
We saw the ad from 2012 saying no leftists.
We see women now being denied housing because of their politics.
Is it getting worse, or has it always been this way?
Let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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