Roommate Preferences Are Sacred, Circuit Says
Roommate Preferences Are Sacred, Circuit Says
(CN) - A website that paired prospective roommates based on personal details like gender, sexual orientation and religion did not violate federal housing law, the 9th Circuit ruled Thursday.
The San Francisco-based federal appeals panel found that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) does not apply to roommates, to whom we give "full access to the space where we are most vulnerable." Rather, such relationships are governed by the right to intimate association.
"Because of a roommate's unfettered access to the home, choosing a roommate implicates significant privacy and safety considerations," Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for a three-judge panel. "The home is the center of our private lives. Roommates note our comings and goings, observe whom we bring back at night, hear what songs we sing in the shower, see us in various stages of undress and learn intimate details most of us prefer to keep private. Roommates also have access to our physical belongings and to our person. As the Supreme Court recognized, '[w]e are at our most vulnerable when we are asleep because we cannot monitor our own safety or the security of our belongings.' Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 99 (1990). Taking on a roommate means giving him full access to the space where we are most vulnerable."
The Fair Housing Council of the San Fernando Valley and the Fair Housing Council of San Diego sued Roommate.com, a popular online meeting place for potential housemates, over a section of the website that allowed users to seek roommates or available rooms based on specific characteristics, including sex, sexual orientation and familial status. The plaintiffs alleged that requiring users to disclose that kind of information violated both federal and California fair-housing laws.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/02/02/43589.htm
= new reply since forum marked as read