THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 22, 1994 TAG: 9411220791
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAURA DOLAN, LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: CHICO, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
Gail Randall and Ken Phillips fell in love with the duplex: It had pale yellow clapboard, trimmed in brick, a high steep roof, hardwood floors and a fireplace. The tree-shaded home here reminded Randall of a gingerbread house.
But there was a hitch: The landlady, a conservative, devout Christian, refused to rent to unmarried couples. When she learned Randall and Phillips lived together outside of marriage, she canceled the rental agreement and mailed back their deposit.
``It was real disappointing,'' said Randall, 31.
The couple filed a complaint against the landlady, sparking a constitutional dilemma over the competing rights of religious freedom and fair housing, property and privacy, and, peripherally, over what constitutes sin.
Backed by one-time presidential candidate and television evangelist Pat Robertson, the landlady maintains that her religious convictions entitle her to discriminate. She and a handful of other landlords around the nation have been prevailing in courts with the help of a legal aid group started by the conservative preacher.
Attorney General Dan Lungren, California's top law enforcement officer, recently refused to continue representing a state fair housing agency against the Chico woman. Lungren said he supported a Court of Appeal ruling in her favor, forcing the state agency to obtain a private lawyer.
The California Supreme Court agreed to review the dispute even though it failed to reach a decision in a similar Southern California case. The justices, who rarely drop a case after voting to accept it, were believed to have been deeply torn. Now Smith's case is considered the most important constitutional test on the issue because most other state high courts have avoided ruling directly on the religious freedom issue.
``If it means the homosexuals and the fornicators can't find a place to live,'' said Evelyn Smith, 62, the Chico landlady, ``well, I am sure there are enough sinners who would rent to them. I am not saying people should be homeless.''
The ruling, expected next year, could have widespread ramifications, allowing the deeply religious to discriminate against gays and heterosexual couples in housing, employment and other business transactions.
Chico, nestled near the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento, is an eclectic community best known as the home of Chico State University, which Playboy Magazine once christened the top party college in the nation.
But the predominantly white, middle-income town also shares the conservatism of the rest of Butte County. Farmers tend almond and walnut orchards, and retirees flock there from elsewhere in the state.
Smith, who raised her family in Chico, lives in a different neighborhood from her rental units. The widow said most prospective tenants go away quietly if they do not like her rules on ``hanky-panky.''
She once explained her feelings to a gay man who wanted to rent from her. ``He said, `I respect you for that,' '' and decided not to pursue the vacancy, she said.
But Randall and Phillips were indignant. He was 28 at the time, she 24. They had lived together for about three years.
When Phillips called Smith about the vacancy seven years ago, she told him she preferred to rent to married couples.
`` `That shouldn't be a problem,' '' Phillips, now 35, remembered replying, ``which it shouldn't be. It was a bit of spin control on my part.''
Before meeting Smith later that day, the Chico landscaper called the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and was told that such discrimination was illegal.
But the couple continued their pretense when they met Smith at the duplex, located in a neighborhood where the couple had long wanted to live. She accepted a deposit, and the couple signed a rental agreement.
Neither Randall nor Phillips wanted to continue the charade. Phillips called Smith later that day and told her the truth. She put their deposit in the mail and canceled the agreement.
Randall, an aspiring nurse who goes to school at night and works two jobs, said she was ``tired of the issue coming up.''
She and her boyfriend had previously rented from a landlord who assumed they were married, and rather than risk losing their home, let him believe as he wished. She did not like the subterfuge.
``We didn't like being put in the position of having to lie,'' she said, ``and we certainly did not want to keep up the lie every month.''
After the unmarried couple filed a complaint against Smith with the state housing commission, her friends put her on ``the prayer chain,'' so that many people would be asking God to send her an attorney.
Jordan Lorence, who was representing a conservative Christian group at the time, took the case. He now is being paid by Robertson's Virginia Beach-based American Center for Law and Justice, which has represented other landlords in similar cases. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
[Pat Robertson]
A handful of conservative Christian landlords around the nation have
been prevailing in court with the help of Pat Robertson's legal aid
group.
KEYWORDS: DISCRIMINATION HOUSING LANDLORD by CNB