A case in California’s Ninth Circuit Court in Pasadena is asking the court to decide if stating specific preferences in roommate ads is discriminatory and in violation of federal Fair Housing statutes.

The suit was filed against Roommates.com by the Fair Housing Councils of San Fernando Valley and San Diego.

    According to the Ninth Circuit lawsuit, if a straight woman were to advertise that she is seeking a gay male roommate, it could be seen as potentially discriminatory towards applicants who aren’t gay males.
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    The California case raises legal and social questions that intersect individual privacy concerns, the First Amendment and laws meant to protect everyone from discrimination. In a strange irony, the case highlights how groups that have themselves been the historical victims of discrimination-like gays-can themselves be discriminatory. But the case may also highlight legal loopholes by which someone can state exactly who he or she will or will not live with.

Betsy Herzog, director of public information at the New York City Commission on Human Rights, is quoted on rules for owners who rent fewer than three units in homes they occupy in “Lawsuit Questions Gay Roommate Preference”: “”If you live in your house where you have an apartment, you can pick and choose who you want in your apartment…[but if] I advertise that apartment, and I say that I don’t want a black, a Jew or a gay guy, that would be discrimination.” Herzog added that individuals have a right to pick and choose who they want to live with.

    This leeway is given since apartments by their very nature, are close and private living quarters. But, the California case calls out Roomates.com and the ads themselves not the individuals posting them.