A room for "Adam and Steve" at Mrs. Murphy's bed and breakfast: avoiding the sin of inhospitality in places of public accommodation.

• Author: Forman, David M.
• Position: I. Re-Introducing "Adam and Steve" through II. Refusing to Accommodate Gay and Lesbian Couples at Bed & Breakfast Establishments (B&Bs

Abstract

This article aims to encourage a vital and evolutionary step forward in understanding how multifaceted legal processes shape, and should shape, thinking about gay and lesbian couples within religious communities and the body politic. The article begins by providing context that illustrates the place-based and diffuse nature of an ongoing culture war between civil rights and religious freedom, further exposing the painful irony inherent in using misinterpretations of the Sodom and Gomorrah parable to reinforce inhospitality. The article describes a state-by-state patchwork of nondiscrimination laws governing places of public accommodation and explores the Jim Crow origins of the "Mrs. Murphy" exception that has been incorporated into a handful of state nondiscrimination laws. The article then examines how existing legal frameworks address claims of sexual orientation discrimination alongside defenses based upon religious freedom. Finally, this article seeks to accelerate an emerging trend toward including sexual orientation as a protected category in our nation's nondiscrimination laws, by highlighting an opportunity to counter religious misinterpretations currently reflected in the prevailing cultural narrative.

1. Re-Introducing "Adam and Steve"

   Since at least the 1970s, the phrase "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" has been used by conservative Christians (and others) to express opposition to civil rights claims by gays and lesbians. (2) During Save Our Children, Inc.'s campaign against a 1977 Dade County, Florida ordinance adopted to prohibit discrimination based upon sexual orientation, singer Anita Bryant appeared at a rally in Little Havana. Addressing the gathered crowd, Bryant said: "The Cuban people left one enemy to come to a free country. It would break my heart if Miami became another Sodom and Gomorrah and you would have to leave." (3) During debate over the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, the Reverend Jerry Falwell invoked the same biblical story by denouncing the proposed legislation as a "Civil Rights Sodom and Gomorrah Act." (4) Nearly a decade later, Professor (and former Court of Appeals judge) Robert Bork published his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah, which refers to "angry activists ... of homosexuality" as one of the many "disadvantage[ous]" outgrowths of "the Sixties generation's fixation on equality[.]" (5) More recently, the Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., senior pastor of The New Baptist Calvary Church in Montclair, New Jersey, wrote:

   And now we are even seeing homosexuality bandied about as a civil right that should be guaranteed under the Constitution similar to some of the rights being sought through the modern "Civil Rights Movement." They are not the same, but be that as it may, the same Jesus condemned Sodom and Gomorrah for their lifestyle. (6) This ongoing conflict between religious convictions and civil rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) community is particularly ironic in the context of discrimination against homosexual couples by proprietors of bed and breakfast establishments (B&Bs). The B&B industry itself recognizes that "[t]he tradition of extending hospitality to traveling strangers goes back to the earliest recorded history for almost all religions and cultures worldwide." (7) Yet B&B owners have repeatedly invoked religious convictions to justify their refusals to accommodate gay and lesbian couples. (8) Many of these proprietors appear to believe that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah condemns homosexuality, even though numerous scholars and commentators have explained that the parable instead provides a dire warning about the sins of selfishness and inhospitality. (9) But the irony does not end there.

   1. The Discriminatory Origins of the "Mrs. Murphy" Exemption to Federal Law Prohibiting Discrimination in Places of Public Accommodation

      The prohibition against discrimination in places of public accommodation under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title II) (10) resulted from a legislative compromise that codified exclusionary policies rooted in our nation's infamous Jim Crow era. (11) In order to pass the proposed bill, (12) proponents of this federal legislation created a so-called "Mrs. Murphy" exemption that allows resident owners of small, transient accommodations to discriminate against prospective patrons. This provision defines "place of public accommodation" to include "any inn, hotel, motel or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests," except for "an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence[.]" (13)

      During the congressional debates, Senator George D. Aiken of Vermont suggested that Congress "integrate the Waldorf and other large hotels, but permit the 'Mrs. Murphys,' who run small rooming houses all over the country, to rent rooms to those they choose." (14) During the 1960s, the image of an "ancient widow operating a three or four room tourist home who would, by force of the bill, be required to accommodate transients without regard to race" (15) resonated with the average American. (16) According to Senator (and, later, Vice President) Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota:

      The so-called Mrs. Murphy provision results from a recognition of the fact that a number of people open their homes to transient guests, often not as a regular business, but as a supplement to their income. The relationships involved in such situations are clearly and unmistakably of a much closer and more personal nature than in the case of major commercial establishments. (17) Harvard Law School professor Joseph William Singer subsequently explained that the right of a business to exclude customers has "less than dignified origins" in the Jim Crow period. (18) According to Singer, this judicially-crafted right accomplished a "change in the law [that] had the effect--and without doubt the purpose--of enabling businesses to continue to serve white customers while choosing to exclude black customers." (19) More specifically, Singer argues that the courts "redistributed property rights in order to promote a racial caste system" (20) by taking "a property right belonging to the public--an easement of access to businesses open to the public with a concomitant duty on businesses to serve the public--and replac[ing] it with a business right to exclude[.]" (21)

      The Mrs. Murphy exemption stems from a belief that the nature of small B&Bs (and similar places of public accommodation for transient guests) is more intimate and personal than major commercial establishments. (22) Although sexual orientation is not a protected category under Title II, a growing number of states and localities have extended protection to gays and lesbians under their respective public accommodations laws. (23) However, a handful of these jurisdictions have also adopted Mrs. Murphy exemptions analogous to federal law, essentially authorizing discriminatory practices against all protected categories (including, but not limited to, gays and lesbians). (24)

   2. "Place-Based" and "Diffuse" Responses to the Perceived Conflict Between Religious Freedom and Civil Rights for the LGBTQI Community

      Dukeminier Award-winning professor Marc Poirier is a leading scholar in numerous fields including law, gender, and sexuality. (25) Professor Poirer contends that the "beachhead federalism" inherent in the state-by-state patchwork of civil rights laws described above is simply the manifestation of an ongoing societal culture war, or Kulturkampf, (26) the core dynamics of which are both place-based and diffuse (27): "place-based" in the sense that "the Kulturkampf is also engaged at lower jurisdictional levels--city, county, public university" (28)--and "diffuse" as a result of the "mobility of signal" that has been made possible by the internet age. (29)

      Among other things, Poirier argues that applying nondiscrimination laws to privately owned businesses held open to the public serves an important function--namely, helping to establish the "presence" (30) and visibility that is needed to produce greater equality for same-sex couples over time. (31) Similarly, writer-scholar-activist Jay Michaelson (32) observes that some commentators believe Christian thinking about homosexuality will evolve just as it did with respect to slavery: "While prior to the war, Christians were divided as to whether the Bible condoned or...