Court Becomes Arbiter in Clash Between Sexual Revolution, Religion : Discrimination laws: Brothers cite their beliefs in defending refusal to rent to unmarried couple.

A high court in Massachusetts has become an arbiter in a culture clash pitting religion against the sexual revolution.

In a case that bears resemblance to others around the country, two Catholic brothers are facing charges of discrimination because they refused to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple.

The brothers say they were following their religious beliefs, but the state says their rental business doesn’t qualify as a religious activity.

“Catholicism is not on trial here, but (the brothers’) strongly held religious convictions are,” said Jay Sekulow, counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Virginia group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.

The center, which is representing the landlords, Paul and Ronald Desilets, presented arguments last week before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Nikolas Nikas, another attorney with the Virginia group, said the landlords were justified in refusing to go against their religion. He also noted that fornication is still against the law in Massachusetts, although authorities say it is rarely, if ever, enforced.

“The commonwealth is attempting to force the Desilets to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs,” Nikas said.

But Judith Beals, an assistant attorney general, said the landlords are engaged in a commercial activity, not a form of worship that is protected under the law.

“The landlords have not shown how the government has restrained them in their religious worship,” Beals told the court.

Similar cases have arisen in other states. In 1990, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of a landlord who also refused to rent to an unmarried couple because of his religious beliefs. In California, the state Court of Appeal sided with a landlord, but the state Supreme Court last year refused to make a ruling.

In Wisconsin last year, a state judge ruled that a woman violated open housing laws by placing an ad for a “Christian handyman” to rent a room in her home.

Such cases evoke different views of how far religious liberties should extend.

Anne-Marie Amiel, an attorney with the Rutherford Institute, an organization that specializes in religious civil liberties, said that if people rent out rooms in their homes, “they should be allowed to choose who they want under their own roof.”

But she said that if someone owns a string of rental properties, “you are basically a commercial landlord. The (fair housing) laws apply to you.”

A federal law passed last year, called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, prevents any form of government from interfering with a person’s exercise of religious freedom unless it can show a “compelling” interest.

Some religious groups say the law bolsters the case of landlords such as the Desilets.

Although the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring open housing, it has a variety of tools to achieve that goal without having to “run roughshod over the religious liberties of others,” said Brent Walker, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee, which focuses on religious liberty issues.

The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts sided against the landlords in the case now before the high court.

“We care a lot about free exercise of religion,” said Sarah Wunsch, an attorney with the organization. “What the landlords want goes way beyond what anyone considers free exercise of religion.”

For example, she said a small community where most residents share the same religious beliefs could essentially screen the people who live in the local rental housing.

In Massachusetts, the state sued the Desilets after they turned away a young couple in 1989 from an apartment in the small western Massachusetts town of Turners Falls.

The couple, Mark Lattanzi and Cynthia Tarail, had seen the apartment advertised in a newspaper. But Paul Desilets asked Tarail whether the couple planned to get married, and when she said no, he turned them down.

According to court papers, Desilets told Tarail: “I don’t go for that living in sin stuff.”

A Franklin County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the landlords in 1992, citing their religious rights.

Beals charged that the brothers violated the state’s fair housing law, which prohibits discrimination based on marital status. She said that law recognizes the rights of unmarried couples, despite the statute against fornication.