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From Washington, Crossfire.
On the left, Tom Brayton.
On the right, Pat Buchanan.
Tonight, behind closed doors.
In the Crossfire, Jordan Lawrence, litigation director for Concerned Women for America,
and in San Francisco, Matthew Coles of the Northern California ACLU.
Good evening.
Welcome to Crossfire.
Can young people of marriageable age continue to play by the rules of the new morality?
If they do, watch out for Mrs. Smith.
And listen to this.
Mrs. Smith, a grandmotherly Californian, rented an apartment to a nice young couple.
But when she found out the couple was unmarried, she changed her mind about their being nice.
Not only that, she returned their check and refused the malice.
Mrs. Smith is of the old time religion.
The Bible forbids fornication.
Mrs. Smith says it forbids fornication 32 times.
But the state of California does not.
The couple sued under California's Fair Housing Law and won.
Mrs. Smith is appealed and the case may be headed for the Supreme Court.
Do these kids have a right to pay for a roof over their heads?
Or does Mrs. Smith have a right to the free exercise of her religion?
Mr. Coles of the ACLU, will you explain to us why this Christian woman should be forced
to rent an apartment to a couple that is shacking up?
Specifically, can this California ordinance really trump the First Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States?
Well, she's not being forced to rent to someone who's shacking up, and the California law
is not trumping the First Amendment.
She doesn't have to rent to anyone at all.
If she so objects to the Fair Housing Law, she can simply remove her unit from the market.
The bottom line, I think, is that the free exercise clause of the Constitution doesn't
give someone liberty to do anything they want based on their religious beliefs.
They can't refuse to pay taxes.
They can't engage in polygamy.
The government may not tell someone that they can't believe something or impose a certain
orthodoxy on them.
But by the same token, someone cannot use their religious beliefs to run roughshod over
our civil rights laws.
Mr. Coles, what this woman is doing is nothing more and nothing less than 19 California state
colleges do.
None of those colleges permits unwed students to shack up on campus.
Now why should this Christian woman be forced to do something that the state of California
doesn't require its own state institutions to do?
I don't know that the state colleges are exempt from the Fair Housing Act.
I don't think they have, and if someone hasn't complained about that yet, maybe someone will.
Well, they're specifically permitted under state law to do that.
Through state college, every university, including Berkeley, forbids unmarried couples to room
together.
Berkeley has unmarried student housing and allows unmarried students to live together.
Unmarried students cannot room together, male and female, adult students in any state university
or state college in the state of California.
We had a witness that said that at our trial.
Well, Mr. Lawrence, let's get back to the case before us.
You're handling it on behalf of, you're the litigation director for Concerned Women for
America.
That's correct.
And Concerned Women for America is backing Mrs. Smith.
That's correct.
And her appeal.
Now I want to ask you, there are three million young Americans, or old, according to the
Census Bureau, who are living together in this country in a unmarried state.
Are they all sinners?
Well, I think different people have different points of view on that.
Mrs. Smith thinks so, and I think that that right is protected.
I think the issue here is, is do we have a big problem of homeless unmarried couples
wandering the streets in need of housing?
We don't.
I think the state of California has passed a law that's an ideological statement on what
they think of the morality of sexuality.
And the law says you cannot discriminate in private housing by reason of race, sex, nationality,
age or marital status.
It seems to me that last one, marital status, merely takes account of the fact that millions
of young people are choosing to live together and to try marriage, companionate marriage,
to try it out and say, all right, we want to get married later, or we don't.
What's wrong with that?
Well, if they want to do it, they can find somewhere else to live.
I don't think that the state of California is the right to push that kind of morality
down the throat of Mrs. Smith and say to you, we're going to punish you, fine you, force
you to put things up in your apartment saying that you're a discriminator if you refuse
because you're religiously...
Mr. Coles, Mr. Coles, why did...
When this couple went to see Mrs. Smith, they lied to her.
They said they were married.
And so she said, all right, she rents them the apartment.
Then she finds out they're shacking up.
She's a Christian woman.
To her, this is a sin.
She doesn't want to condone it.
It violates her faith.
What about her First Amendment rights to practice her own religion in her own property?
I think she has the right to practice her own religion in her own property.
When she enters the commercial real estate market, that's another matter entirely.
If she believed that black people were somehow not proper tenants, she'd not be allowed to
act on that.
She'd not be allowed to refuse to rent somebody because of their religious beliefs.
Mr. Coles, we're not talking about something that people cannot...people cannot change
the fact that they're black or white.
They can certainly change their...
But we're talking here about behavior.
Suppose the guy showed up with three girls.
Would she have to rent to them too?
She certainly couldn't refuse on the basis of marital status.
Well that's what we're talking about.
But this notion you're drawing between behavior, I mean certainly religion is a state that
one can change or not change.
That's protected by California law as well.
And the major beneficiaries of this law have been families with children who have gotten
into apartments where landlords previously refused to rent to families with children.
Those are the major beneficiaries.
But we're not talking about that.
We're not talking about that.
We're talking about people engaged in a situation she finds deeply offensive.
Let me give you an example.
Wait a minute, Pat.
Why don't we give you another example?
Hold it.
Tom, suppose a woman was a strict Baptist and she said, you folks don't drink, do you?
And they say, no, we don't.
And then they find out they're drinking liquor and she says, look, I don't want that done
on my premises.
It is my property, so you have to go.
It seems to me she ought to be able to say that if that's to her apartment.
Perhaps she can under California law and perhaps she can't.
As long as the drinking does not constitute a public nuisance, I don't see why she would
have been.
I mean, you disagree.
Why can't she have her own?
Oh, look, how do you know that these young people intended to live in sin, as Mrs. Smith
said?
Maybe they were chaste.
They moved in.
Why did they lie?
Obviously, to stave off the kind of discrimination they were eventually hit with.
It's a bad way to do it, but it's not surprising given what happened.
Well, they basically admitted that they were doing it.
The judge in the case, even though he ruled against us, said that it was obvious that
there was sexual activity going on.
So there wasn't, I mean, that was never an issue.
He said just from the evidence that was put forward in the case.
I mean, come on, Mr. Braden, if a man and woman go every night into the same room, I
mean, even a man of your experience should know something might be going on.
Yeah, I mean, they were self-hating.
Why didn't they say so?
Does Mrs. Smith's free exercise of religion permit her to be a keyhole peeper and to make
sure that those people are sinning?
She didn't do that.
She just said, I'm not going to rent it to you if you're unmarried and living together.
See, I don't think that the state of California has a compelling state interest just to roll
over someone's religious rights for any reason at all.
I'm kind of shocked that the ACLU...
Mr. Coles, you're an ACLU man.
It seems to me that, I mean, whatever you stood for, it was sort of pluralism.
People who have religious views have them.
People who don't have them.
What California is trying to do here is to impose a certain kind of morality, in other
words, the acceptability of cohabiting outside of marriage, upon people who don't believe
in that.
Well, I mean, we do believe in free exercise of religion.
We believe that the state cannot say to somebody that you can't hold a certain belief and that
you can't engage in religious practices.
What Mrs. Smith is saying...
Why aren't you defending her?
What's that?
Why aren't you defending her?
Why aren't you standing up for her rights?
She's a minority.
Among other things, we haven't been asked.
But Mrs. Smith, it seems to me, is going far beyond religious exercise and saying, I wish
to make the dictates of my religion my basis for operations in the commercial marketplace.
All right, Mr. Coles, we have to take a break for a commercial.
Mr. Lawrence, we have to take a break.
When we get back, how far does the free exercise of religion go?
How far can you carry it?
We'll be right back.
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Welcome back to Crossfire.
We're discussing the case of Mrs. Smith, who unlawfully, in California, unlawfully refused
to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple.
Our guests are Matthew Cole, staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, and Jordan
Lawrence, who is the litigation director for Concerned Women of America, which has taken
up Mrs. Smith's case.
Mrs. Smith has a religious reason for her refusal to rent, and she bases her case on
the First Amendment, the free exercise of religion.
I want to know, Mr. Lawrence, would the free exercise of religion, could she say, I refuse
to rent my house to a man who gambles or who has ever stolen money or who has been guilty
of coveting, which the Bible forbids?
I think so.
There's nothing in state law that forbids any of that.
And I think a landlord is able to determine the character of the possible tenants and
determine whether they want to rent to somebody.
You can say, I believe that Mr. Lawrence covets, and therefore I won't rent to him.
I think that's protected.
The state has no interest in your having a roof over your head that Mrs. Smith's religion
can't interfere with.
Under the fair housing laws, you can't sue for covetousness, discrimination.
It's got to be race, religion, sex, those types of things.
Mr. Cole, let me get back into this.
I really want to ask the ACLU, I can't understand this.
You seem to be siding with the state in all its power against a single woman to force
her to violate what she obviously deeply believes and to contradict her own conscience on this
matter.
Now, I had thought the ACLU, despite some of its wild positions, stood up for the individual
against the state in cases like this.
We do.
The only individual here is not Mrs. Smith.
The individuals here are the renters of the state of California, and we're not seeking
to force Mrs. Smith to do anything.
As I said before, if she feels strongly enough that her rental practices have to be motivated
by religious beliefs despite what state law says, she doesn't have to be in the rental
market.
The point here really comes down to what is the more important principle?
Civil rights, freedom and open housing on the one hand.
Your idea of civil rights is the first matter.
Let me give you another example.
Let me close Mr. Braden, and this is purely hypothetical, one of his children came home
with someone and said, you know, we want to shack up for the night, my boyfriend and I.
Mr. Braden would have a perfect right to say, not in my house you don't, out onto the street.
Now, Mrs. Smith, it seems to me, has the same right.
It seems to me you miss a rather important distinction, Mr. Buchanan.
Mrs. Smith is involved in the commercial housing market.
Mr. Braden, your example is not.
I don't think the first thing...
She rents her property.
She rents, no, she rents for a living.
She makes a living renting.
That's the difference.
She's in business.
That's right.
I don't think that just because someone with religious beliefs is in the marketplace means
that they totally lose their First Amendment rights.
Well, let me ask you about the free exercise of religion.
Does the free exercise of religion mean, Mr. Lawrence, that you can disturb your neighbors
by constantly singing hymns all day?
No.
Or by praying loudly in the front yard?
What's the compelling state interest to promote fornication, to protect people that are living
together outside of marriage?
But you're...
I don't see any compelling interest there.
But you would prevent two people from getting housing over roofs over their heads because
of Mrs. Smith's religion?
I don't think there's a problem.
You can't have Mrs. Smith's roof.
Now, tell us the compelling state interest, Mr. Cole.
The compelling state interest is in fair and open housing.
It's in making sure that single mothers with children, the primary beneficiaries of the
marital status discrimination law, are discriminated against.
We're not dealing with a single mother with children.
We're dealing with people shacking up.
Now, what is the compelling state interest there?
Mr. Buchanan, the compelling state interest relates to marital status discrimination.
You would have the protection of the law when you like the beneficiaries and you would not
have it when you don't like them.
What you're saying is the compelling state interest is California wants to put shacking
up on the same level with marriage, which is exactly what they've done here.
Common law marriage.
Excuse me, that didn't come before the First Amendment.
No, Mr. Buchanan.
What I'm saying is that the compelling state interest is in preventing people from being
denied housing either because they are married or because they aren't married.
That's what the California law is about.
All right.
Let me ask you.
If four gays wanted to rent that apartment, would she have to rent to them as well?
I believe under California state law she would.
Okay.
Well, when we come back, another question of public morality and not unexpectedly, it's
up in San Francisco.
The Board of Supervisors has just voted 10 to zip to provide the live-in gay lovers of
city employees the identical health benefits that are provided to husbands or wives.
Is this progress or yet another manifestation of social decline?
What you're about to see is a sin.
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So anybody can get in on this deal?
Anybody can't get in on this deal, Mr. Buchanan, you've got to undertake that very serious joint support obligation
Can polygamous couples be domestic partners under the San Francisco ordinance?
No
Why not? Isn't that unfair and discriminatory?
Why are you discriminating against that?
Because it says any two people
That's right, it has to be two people
There's still in our culture a bias against polygamy, but the one against sodomy is breaking down
Maybe that's all it's saying, because I don't see how you can draw a line there between those two
Well look, California State law has drawn a line on polygamy and on bigamy
And there's nothing we can do about that, even if we wanted to
But you would do something if you could, wouldn't you?
I don't know, nobody's asked us to do anything about it, Mr. Buchanan, are you making a request?
Just a minute, Pat and Mr. Lawrence, here we have a city which has got a very large percentage of homosexuals who live there
And they are entitled to the rights of American citizens, the same as you and I and Pat
What is wrong with letting them with a cohabitation ordinance which permits them to be treated as we are?
What's wrong with it?
I think our culture, the stability of our culture is built on heterosexual married couples not giving legal recognition to every type of sexual perversion that people want to have
Well, they don't think it's perversion, it's not perversion to them
You used to argue a long time ago that marriage and the family were really central building blocks of society
They are
You are now putting a relationship like this on the same level as the family
No, I am trying to prevent you from taking roughly 13 to 15 percent of the American citizens and put them in second class status
Because they have sexual habits which you don't like and I don't like
First, your numbers are ridiculous, it's closer to 2 or 3 percent
Secondly, you are talking about people who engage in a kind of behavior that most people think is depraved
And third, you yourself have said you think marriage is the foundation, the building stone of society and you are putting this relationship on a par with it
Okay, do you think Caesar was depraved?
If he might have been
He was a homosexual
I'm not sure
Do you think T.E. Lawrence was depraved? There have been many homosexuals famous for their achievements in history
I don't think we ought to make second class citizens out of them
They did depraved things if they engaged in these kinds of acts and you know it as well as I, Mr. Braden
Okay, thank you, Mr. Lawrence and thank you out in San Francisco
And thank you, Mr. Braden
For being our guest on Crossfire
Pat and I will be back in just a minute
Music
Good evening, I'm Lou Waters, CNN's prime news is next
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Pat, let's get back to Mrs. Smith and religion
Suppose that you come to me, I'm a landlord, I'm renting houses
You come to me and ask to have a room or an apartment
And I say, Mr. Buchanan, I'm sorry
I found out that you are a Catholic and I happen to be a Protestant
And my religion forbids me to rent to you
My own view is if you only get a single rooming house, you ought to have a right to do it
But religion is one thing
On this thing, what you're going to get is her First Amendment rights, Tom
Miss Smith's are going to conflict with this ordinance which was really ideologically driven
I hope it goes to the Supreme Court, Mrs. Smith is going to win this one
No, she won't, not against the public interest
To the left, I'm Tom Brady, good night for Crossfire
What is the public interest in shacking up?
From the right, Pat Buchanan, join us tomorrow night for another edition of Crossfire
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