Only a 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.
According to ADF, the civil rights complaint filed against the woman by the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan, a private group. The complaint attacked her because in her ad she excluded people of other faiths. ADF attorneys pointed out that the government’s interference was a blatant violation of her First Amendment rights to freedom of association.
Through this ordeal, the Fair Housing Center for Western Michigan, which issued the complaint, has come under close scrutiny. A contract between the city of Grand Rapids and the FHCWM states that the center will be paid for submitting a specific number of complaints reporting “discrimination.” It would seem that something is rotten in Western Michigan!
According to ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster, “There is real concern when a special interest group like this center has a financial incentive from the city to file various complaints. This complaint should have never been brought. It is borderline frivolous to suggest that a single lady can be fined by the government simply for seeking a Christian female roommate to share her 900-square-foot house.”
See also: Church bulletin board ad brings civil rights complaint
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