Advertisement
 
YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollections

PLATFORM : Issue Is Morality

December 09, 1991|MARK TROOBNICK | MARK TROOBNICK is staff attorney for the Washington-based Concerned Women for America, which is defending a Chico woman who refused to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple on religious reasons. Commenting on a state appeals court decision on the religious rights of a Downey landlord in a similar case, he told The Times:

If the state of California does not require institutions such as hospitals and universities to allow unmarried cohabitation, there's no reason to require people to abandon their moral convictions because they enter commerce on some small level.

Religious rights in other states are being subjected to statutory control. However, the California (court) merely concluded that the Downey case centered on the state's constitutional guarantees of free exercise of religion. The state should have to show a compelling reason for denying religious rights. To rule otherwise would mean an individual would have to check personal morality at the door when entering the commercial arena.

This is an issue that relates to morality and wedlock and not an issue relating to bias based on characteristics such as skin color or gender.

Advertisement
Los Angeles Times Articles
|
|
|