Law Commons^™

Remembering Mrs. Murphy: A Remedies Approach To The Conflict Between Gay/Lesbian Renters And Religious Landlords, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

There have been a number of legislative, caselaw and academic attempts at trying to resolve the conflict between the non-discrimination rights of gay and lesbian couples seeking housing and the free exercise rights of religious landlords who don't believe they should rent to unmarried couples. The academic writing often tries to resolve this conflict either by minimizing the harm to one of the parties (e.g., by categorizing the landlord's harm as merely commercial, or the tenant's as merely a problem of housing availability) or denying the relative importance of one of the party's rights. Others attempt a more positivist approach, …