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How About Fairness Toward Employers and Landlords?

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

The Louisville Council is debating whether to reinstate its “fairness” ordinance, which prohibits employers and landlords from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.  The proponents of this ordinance claim that it expresses the community’s tolerance and fairness toward all its citizens, but, in fact, it really expresses bigotry and intolerance against employers and landlords. 

In the United States, all private citizens used to have civil rights, including “freedom of association” and “freedom of contract”, meaning that they could associate with whomever they chose and enter into business dealings with whomever they chose.  These civil rights applied equally to everyone – landlords, tenants, employers, employees, gays, straights, and so forth.  However, laws like the “fairness” ordinance create different classes of citizens, stripping private employers and landlords of their basic civil rights.  While employees and tenants still have the freedom to choose the job or the housing they want, employers and landlords no longer have comparable freedoms. 

But why should a simple lifestyle choice, such as choosing to offer a person a job or a place to live, cause someone to forfeit his civil rights?  If an employer wants to hire only women, or only Irish, or only gays, why shouldn’t he be able to act on his own preferences, just as gays are free to act on their sexual preferences?  Granted, it might be difficult for an employer to find enough qualified employees on that basis, but shouldn’t that be his choice?  Why should he lose his rights to freedom of association and freedom of contract just because he is an employer?

While it is true that many people are prejudiced against employers and landlords and may even consider employers and landlords to be evil, in America we are not supposed to give in to such bigotry, and we certainly should not enshrine it into law.  The United States is supposed to be a place where all people have equal civil rights, even those we may despise.

One of the arguments for the so-called “fairness” ordinance is that it will show that Louisville is a tolerant community and thus will attract businesses and cause the local economy to thrive.  However, the ordinance actually is an act of bigotry and intolerance against employers and landlords -- many of the very people most likely to help the local economy thrive.  It presumes that employers are evil creatures who must be regulated for the benefit of employees, and landlords are evil creatures who must be regulated for the benefit of tenants. 

Unfortunately, in today’s society, landlords and employers are so despised that few people seem to care when the law intentionally discriminates against them.  It makes you wonder what landlords and employers possibly could have done to cause them to be so despised.  They have no real power over us.  All they can do is offer us opportunities.  If we don’t like the housing a landlord is offering, we can pass it up in favor of something else.  If we don’t like the job an employer is offering, again we can choose a different job or go into business for ourselves.  Employers and landlords are not like the IRS or the police, who can come at us, take our property, and destroy us through the use of force.  By comparison, employers and landlords are just a bunch of pussycats!

Continuing with its trend of depriving people of their freedom of association and freedom of contract, will the Metro Council tell us whom we can marry, what kind of job we can have, or where we must live?  Such deprivation of our civil rights seems unthinkable!  Too bad we don’t recognize how wrong it is to deprive employers and landlords of these same rights.

Of course, as is usually the case, when a law is unjust, it also harms the economy.  This “fairness” law says, “We want more jobs, so we will punish the people who create jobs by stripping away their civil rights.”  It says, “We want more housing, so we will punish the people who provide housing by stripping away their civil rights.”  Such logic can only make sense to politicians and English majors!

If the Louisville Council wants to express “tolerance”, let it start by recognizing that employers and landlords are entitled to freedom of association and freedom of contract, just like everyone else! 

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