Christian woman allowed to seek female Christian roommate…for now

HUD dismisses complaint following ADF letter defending Mich. woman’s right to post ad on her church bulletin board
Thursday, November 04, 2010

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Just one week after Alliance Defense Fund attorneys sent a letter on behalf of a single woman urging the Michigan Department of Civil Rights to throw out a groundless complaint against her for seeking a Christian roommate through a post on her church bulletin board, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a dismissal. The complaint alleged that the woman’s posting was illegal because of its “discriminatory” nature.

“Christians shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government for being Christians. This attempt to criminalize the legal and constitutionally protected activity of a single Christian woman privately seeking a Christian roommate at church is nothing short of absurd,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster. “HUD did the right thing through its dismissal of the frivolous complaint. Anti-religious groups wanting to confine Christians and their beliefs within the four walls of their church or home cannot also invade those very walls by forcing their own ideas upon Christians through threats of severe punishment.”

The civil rights complaint filed against the woman by the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan, a private group, attacked her for posting, on her church’s bulletin board, a card that began with the following sentence: “I am looking for a Christian roommate….” The claimant alleged that the statement expressed an illegal preference for a Christian roommate because it excluded people of other faiths. the rest