New ConLaw Casebook--Is This Appropriate?

[David Cruz]

On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 DavidEBernstein at aol.com wrote:

> Frank,
> As I wrote to someone off-list, I've never seen a case where a landlord
> argues "I don't like gays because my religion tells me not to, so I won't rent to
> them."  [snip]

Evelyn Thomas was not Fred Phelps, but I think it also does no one a
service to pretend that the Fred Phelps of the world do not exist.  When I
went to Cambridge to talk to people when the very first finally officially
sanctioned marriages of same-sex couples were performed, folks from the
Westboro Baptist Church ("God Hates Fags") were out in force.  They are
just as entitled to raise free exercise defenses to antidiscrimination
laws as are less loathesome people of faith.

David B. Cruz
Professor of Law
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0071
U.S.A.