A new lawsuit charging that an apartment manager refused to rent to a Florida gay couple spotlights a pervasive but largely hidden form of discrimination in America.
Physician Fred Sternbach and his partner of 16 years, banker Stephen Miller, were shopping for a temporary place to stay while building their dream house -- a "Palm Beach classic, Old World, Northern Italian, Southern French, kind of castle-looking house," as Fred describes it.
He wrote on an application form at the Royal Colonial Apartments in Boca Raton, Fla., that he and his "partner" would live there. Later, he says, the manager called to say: "We don't rent to partners. Not boyfriends, or girlfriends. We only rent to married couples."
"I was insulted and hurt," Fred recalls. "I've never been discriminated against so overtly. It wasn't like the manager was even trying to hide that she was discriminating."
No one from Royal Colonial returned my call for comment.
Palm tree-filled Boca Raton is in one of 145 U.S. communities where anti-gay housing bias is banned by local ordinance. No federal law exists, and only 12 states have such protections.
Sean Kosofsky of the Triangle Foundation of Michigan, which has no state ban, says reports of such discrimination come in every week. But only about one-eighth of gay Michiganders live in one of the dozen jurisdictions with housing protection. He adds, "Most people pretty much react to housing discrimination by feeling helpless: 'I can't do anything about it, so I should go look for something else.'"
Fair housing isn't simply a matter of fairness. What's most evil about anti-gay housing bias is the way it tears at the very fiber of a couple trying to build a life together.
My own tastes of housing bias are still bitter to recall: As a closeted student at the University of Michigan and later at Stanford University, I was told by apartment managers that I couldn't rent a one-bedroom unit with the woman who was then my partner. Both times, we were forced to pay for a second bedroom. Frightened, we kept that unwanted space dressed up as though one of us slept there.
Now 45, comfortably openly gay and a homeowner, I realize that the damage done to me -- and to my first relationship -- wasn't just economic. The message I got was to hide my identity and to be afraid. That led me to behave in ways that undermined me -- and my relationship.
Fortunately, gutsy activists across America stand up for people, like the younger me, who respond to bias by slinking away or paying for an extra bedroom.
One of the best instructors on standing up to bias is the Fairness Campaign in Louisville, Ky. When county officials said they needed proof of anti-gay housing bias before outlawing it, the Fairness Campaign joined with a local TV station to document the problem.
Opposite-sex and same-sex couples, with cameras hidden in eyeglasses and backpacks, posed as apartment hunters.
In six tests, the straight couples were offered one-bedroom units every time. But half the time, the gay couples were turned away. Each time the gay couple was rejected, they were told unmarrieds couldn't rent. Yet the straight couples weren't asked about their marital status.
One manager falsely claimed a "state statute" prohibited renting to gay couples. In one of the instances where a gay couple was offered a one-bedroom, they were told it would cost $340 a month -- $45 higher than for the straight couple.
The videotaped discrimination, aired on local television, was compelling. As a result, Jefferson County banned it in 1999. (For more on this invaluable model, go to fairness.org .)
"Over and over, elected officials will say, 'We are just not sure discrimination exists,'" says Carol Kraemer of Fairness. "The visual proof gave clear evidence."
Loving relationships are fragile blessings. And landlords shouldn't be allowed to harm them.
Deb Price of The Detroit News writes the first nationally syndicated column on gay issues and is the co-author of "Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court." To find out more about Deb Price and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com .
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