Posted on 03/03/2009 12:12:32 PM PST by TornadoAlley3
NIAGARA FALLS—Two days after a man was sentenced to probation and community service for putting up a sign as a “joke” in a public works garage that said “whites only” on a drinking fountain, city police were called to a home in the 600 block of 25th Street on Sunday to investigate another racially charged sign.
This one was clearly no joke.
No charges were filed Sunday, but police told the woman she must take down the handwritten sign on a fence on her property saying, “I rent three bedrooms [at her address to] white people Niagara Falls.”
The 53-year-old woman told police she put up the sign after someone tried to break into her house and added, “I can do what I want. I live in America,” according to a police report.
Police said they received complaints and she must take the sign down. An officer at the scene said the woman agreed to take down the sign under protest. The officer said the woman already had seven more signs she was planning to hang up.
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/faculty_staff/duane.cfm
Fair Housing laws do not apply to an owner renting a room in their house. Civil rights laws MAY be violated, but not fair housing.
Really?
How does rental property move from one state to another?
>> Is this another one of those “penumbra” and “emanation” things?
Probably.
Constituitional or not — it is the law. If she doesn’t like it, there are methods of challenging it in the Courts. But, we are not empowered to ignore whatever laws we deem unconstitutional.
As for the fair housing act itself — it is likely unconstitutional ... but, we, as a country, brought it on ourselves. Slavery was an unconstitutional denial of rights to a great many people — and segregation was a spin-off continuation of the problems brought about by slavery. The inability of black citizens to procure housing was a direct result of that.
Our arrogance in originally ignoring the Constitutional rights of slaves brought about a severe overreaction in the other direction ... the outdated remnants of that overreaction still exist.
SnakeDoc
>> article says the signs states she rents three bedrooms to whites. i don’t see anything about “whites only”
That seems an irrelevant technicality to me. The “only” is clearly implied.
SnakeDoc
Gotta break the law before you get standing in the Courts though.
It is clearly racist and wrongheaded.
It is also fascist to tell this woman who to rent to.
>> Gotta break the law before you get standing in the Courts though.
Not necessarily — though that is one way. You can theoretically sue for the power to rent to only white people. As a landlord, you’d likely have standing to sue.
SnakeDoc
Not so.
Slavery was perfectly Constitutional. Provisions for it were WRITTEN in to the U.S. Constitution as it was adopted, thereby making it defacto "Constitutional".
Moral? No.
Constitutional, yes; at least until the 13th Amendment CHANGED the Constitution.
The materials used to build the house have moved across state lines. Also, the enforcement clause in the Fourteenth Amendment allows the government to prevent racial discrimination.
>> Slavery was perfectly Constitutional. Provisions for it were WRITTEN in to the U.S. Constitution as it was adopted, thereby making it defacto “Constitutional”.
The basis of the Constitution is that the Bill of Rights simply enumerates some of those rights granted humanity by the Almighty. The Declaration of Indpendence elaborated on this concept by stating outright that certain rights, particularly life and liberty, are inalienable — and thus that no government document may legitimately deny those rights to an innocent person.
The portions of the Constitution which legalized slavery were, according to the very principles of our foundation, illegal and illegitimate.
SnakeDoc
Building materials?
Also, 14th applies to the STATES, not individuals. Private property is NOT State property - at least did not used to be.
You write as if you are an apologist for the petty tyrants who have usurped our Constitution.
I’m just quoting unanimous Supreme Court rulings.
hard to know from the article, how many rooms does she rent?
Ahhhhh.
Yet another attorney who redefines words the way he WANTS them to be defined - “illegal” under WHAT law? - in order to force reality to fit his own notions.
Your intitials aren’t WJC, are they?
As I said, an apologist for the petty tyrants who have usurped our Constitution.
Implication of “only” is hardly irrelevent - unless you support punishing this woman for what she did NOT say.
If this is the “republican resistance”... ugh!
>> Yet another attorney who redefines words the way he WANTS them to be defined - “illegal” under WHAT law? - in order to force reality to fit his own notions.
Under the law that broke us away from England.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These words are the very basis of our Republic — that our rights emanate from the Creator (not from the government or even the Constitution). The word “inalienable” means precisely that. No government, and no Constitution, including our own, may legitimately or legally alienate these rights.
SnakeDoc
Of all the things to get up in arms about with the judicial branch, the Civil Rights laws don’t seem to be one of them.
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