It looks obvious

This is another example why I am not, and will not, be a member of the ACLU. Ownership and allowing consumers to decide for themselves, by making purchasing decisions, is one human right the ACLU choose not to protect for political reasons. Inviting the FCC to regulate more than it does already is invitation for more abuses of the Freedom of Speech, but this apparently doesn’t concern the ACLU.

The Freedom of speech and the Freedom of Association are both part of the civil liberties the ACLU was supposed to protect. They are also rights protected by the constitution. But apparently the ACLU has very selective approach to civil liberties protection, and that disqualify its integrity altogether.

You don’t need to be as extremist as I am, to see the problem with this court ruling:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Thursday that a website may be found liable for violating fair housing laws by matching roommates according to gender, sexual orientation and parenthood.

Federal law protecting websites “was not meant to create a lawless, no-man’s land on the Internet,” the court in San Francisco said in an 8-3 ruling.

The judges said a site called Roommates.com may be brought to trial for possibly violating anti-discrimination laws because it requires users to provide information about gender, sexual orientation and whether they have children, and then uses the information to screen people for matches.

“A real estate broker may not inquire as to the race of a prospective buyer, and an employer may not inquire as to the religion of a prospective employee,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the majority. “If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face by telephone, they don’t magically become lawful when asked electronically online.”

Choosing a roommate is by nature a discriminatory act - we are choosing who we are going to live with, to share our apartment or home with, based on completely subjective criteria. Some of these criteria might involve gender, sexual orientation, race or religion - all of them are fine criteria because we are going to live together.

Ruling that a business that should provide people efficient tools to find suitable roommates that it cannot provide the necessary tools is a death sentence to this business. But worse than that is the fact that the court ruling saying that our freedom of association, in our own houses, is not protected.

It is often said that the slippery slope is not a valid argument, but this is perfect demonstration of slippery slope - it started with telling business owners that they don’t have the freedom of choose who they are hiring than it become illegal to select your neighbors and now one cannot decide who she doesn’t want to share her apartment with. What next? non-discriminatory dating and match making services?