Free Republic

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Oregon’s first-in-the-nation ban on so-called real estate ‘love letters,’ personal notes from prospective homebuyers to home sellers, saying it violates the First Amendment by restricting free speech too broadly. The conservative Pacific Legal Foundation had filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court after the Oregon Legislature last year attempted to limit housing discrimination by prohibiting buyers from sending letters to sellers to try to sweeten their offers on houses for sale. Those letters, often written to appeal to a seller to accept a potentially less-competitive offer, were outlawed as of Jan....

It was 7:49 Friday night at Millie & Al's, a pub on 18th Street in the Adams Morgan district, and it looked like any other night. A hockey game flickered on the small television screen; elk antlers hung near the back wall next to a string of M&M Christmas lights; behind the bar, the light that signaled $1 jello shooters was not yet activated; working stiffs, tired from the week, unwound at the bar while friends laughed and chatted at tables. I had a bottle of Guinness in front of me and a pizza on the way, but I kept...