Are you gay? A federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled that the website roomates.com is in violation of California law on the forms it’s customers fill out in search of a roommate. The case will now proceed against the website. As a queer person i find this case slightly complicated. On one hand, I see how asking these sorts of identities or status questions opens the situation up for discrimination in searching for housing. At the same time, I remember years ago when I had roommates it was very, very, very important to me that I was living with queer people. If we rule that a site can no longer ask if someone is queer in an effort to keep people from having to come out, what happens to the people who are interested in living with other queer people? This is an interesting case, and I for sure am interested to watch how it ends up going in the end.
–Sassafras Lowrey
Filed under: queer media, queer news | Tagged: gay, legislation, roommate, roommates, bromance, supermodel
