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November 9, 2010
Feds Drop Case Against Woman Who Sought Christian Roommate
By Lee Duigon
Imagine this. You’re a single woman, a Christian, living alone in a single-family house that you own; and you’d like a compatible roommate to share expenses and companionship. So you pin a notice to your church bulletin board: “I am looking for a female Christian roommate.” Before you can find a roommate, a group of “community organizers” accuses you of “discrimination,” your home state’s Department of Civil Rights is investigating you, and your “case” is kicked upstairs to the federal government.
Tricia Rowe, of Alger Heights, Michigan, doesn’t have to imagine such a thing: to her it really happened. The good news is that the federal government has dismissed the complaint, finding “no reasonable cause” for action. The bad news, of course, is that it happened at all.
Who Started It?
There is a certain amount of mystery involved in this case. In an effort to clear it up, we contacted the official “complainant,” the Fair Housing Center of Western Michigan, based in Grand Rapids. They flatly refused to provide any information about their role in the case, or to answer any questions about it whatsoever. So if at any point we misconstrue their actions or their motives, they have only themselves to blame. The U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights were more forthcoming, and are our primary sources of information for this case. But even they can’t unravel the mystery of how the case arose in the first place. Only the Fair Housing Center knows that, and they’re not talking.
A HUD document signed by Region V Director Barbara Knox, provided to us by HUD, states that “an unnamed individual brought the notice to the attention of” the Fair Housing Center, which “has not identified the individual.” The Michigan Department of Civil Rights couldn’t discover the identity of the offended individual, either. “I don’t know if it was a church member who reported the notice to the Fair Housing Center in Grand Rapids,” said Harold Core, spokesman for the state agency. “If there was someone else, we never got a name. We were completely swamped with calls about this case, and we weren’t able to complete our investigation.”
Who, besides the members of a church, sees the notices posted on the church’s bulletin board? Is it possible that a member of the Keystone Community Church reported a fellow member to the Fair Housing Center, instead of talking to the pastor, the church elders, or to Ms. Rowe? It seems highly unlikely. But if that’s what happened, that church member ignored St. Paul’s injunction in 1 Corinthians 6:1: “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?” We were not able to get a response to our questions from anyone at Keystone. But then how could the pastor or an elder have known it, if one member of the congregation had done this to another?
The first Ms. Rowe heard about her supposed bias crime-again according to HUD-was a phone call from the Fair Housing Center: “Complainant conducted a telephone test to determine the identity of the poster of the advertisement.”
We hope the person who started this was not a member of the church. But if not, would that mean that the Fair Housing Center had operatives creeping into churches, looking for something to complain about? Why would they do that? Possibly because their contract with the city of Grand Rapids sets a quota of 70 “bias complaints” to be filed by the Fair Housing Center per year. Joel Oster, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney defending Tricia Rowe, provided us with a copy of that contract. It requires the Fair Housing Center to “conduct a minimum of 70 complaint based and non-complaint based housing tests to determine compliance with fair housing laws,” for which the city is to pay the Fair Housing Center “an amount not to exceed Seventy Three Thousand Dollars ($73,000).”
Is it reasonable to interpret that as a quota? “That is my general understanding,” Oster said.
The Plaintiff’s ‘Mission’
HUD describes the Fair Housing Center as “a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate practices of illegal housing discrimination and promote open, diverse communities through education and advocacy [emphasis added].” Furthermore, according to HUD, the Fair Housing Center also “seeks damages in compensation for frustration of its mission and diversion of its resources.”
HUD did not comment on this outrageous claim, but we will. How in the world is it Ms. Rowe’s fault that the Fair Housing Center indulged in a “diversion of its resources” by pursuing a baseless complaint against her? Would not mere common sense and common decency tell them that if you can’t choose a roommate for the house that you own and occupy, your personal freedom doesn’t amount to much at all? Who are they to decide what anyone’s community should look like? How “diverse” is diverse enough for them? If seeking a compatible roommate constitutes “frustration of its mission,” perhaps these ACORN wannabes ought to rethink their mission – or, better yet, give it up and turn to honest work instead.
The Public Outcry
The Michigan Deptartment of Civil Rights, said Harold Core, was obliged by federal law to field the complaint against Ms. Rowe. The federal Fair Housing Act, he said, “specifically covers advertising that indicates a preference based on religion. We took the case based on that. The only thing we did was to accept the complaint.” In a press release he added, “at no time did we state or even imply a conclusion that the posting of this particular advertisement was indeed a violation of the law.”
The public was not amused. When news of the case broke, “this office and specifically a member of our staff was subjected to a barrage of phone calls, emails, comments, posts, and blog entries … many also included threats or other inappropriate personal attacks … All threatening communications have been and will be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement authorities,” said the press release. Can it be that the public will not tolerate this level of state interference in citizens’ personal lives? This case was simply too hot for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and was sent on up to HUD before any “investigation” could be made. It should be mentioned that HUD took only a few days to dismiss the case.
Ultimately, said attorney Oster, “common sense prevailed.” HUD would apparently agree. Says the HUD report: “[I]n light of the facts provided and after assessing the unique context of the advertisement and the roommate relationship involved in this particular situation potentially involving the sharing of religious beliefs, the Department defers to Constitutional considerations [emphasis added] in reaching its conclusion.”
I have two thoughts: 1. The FHCWM website lists their donors. I’ve read the list and doubt that most of these donors are motivated by unselfish devotion to the cause of fair housing. I believe they donate to curry favor with FHCWM in the event that their own actions should ever be questioned. 2. I believe if Grand Rapids citizens knew that their city had a contract with FHCWM to produce 70 housing tests per year to determine compliance at a cost not to exceed $73,000, they would absolutely go ballistic.
Imagine this coming to light in the context of trying to find enough money to open swimming pools in the summer. Just imagine the uproar. Why it would blow city hall and FHCWM away.
Those “community organisers” are those people who call themselves “Secular Humanists” who promote religion as bad and are fighting to have religion “illegalised”. This website speaks often about “Messianic governments”.
Thankfully this “act of discrimination” was not persecuted further. We need to get more people with genuinely Christian (rather than just Christian in name only) morals in authority.