Q: Am I practicing discrimination if I decide not to rent to a Trump supporter (in Florida) and put it in an ad?
I rent out a room in my home in Florida and wanted to confirm that refusing to rent to someone (discriminating against) based on their political affiliation or personal voting choice is illegal, but that refusing to rent to to someone based on their support of a political individual ie.Trump) is legal ?
A:
Under Federal and State law, It is LEGAL to discriminate against someone based on their political views, AS WELL AS their political affiliation or personal voting choice, as those categories are not amongst the "protected classes", such as race, sex, religion, age, national origin, disability, etc. (This is assuming that you, the landlord, are not a government entity, because if you were, then there'd be a First Amendment problem. ) You should read up on the Federal and State Fair Housing laws, which you can easily find on-line.
HOWEVER, two caveats: (1) you would need to make sure the contemplated discrimination is not prohibited under any local (County/City) ordinances (usually not), and (2) you'd need to be extremely careful about you go about this, so that you don't open yourself up to an accusation of discriminating against a protected class (for example, a particular race that happens to be more supportive of whatever disgusting public figure you have in mind). Any ad and any turn-down communications should be carefully worded.
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