"Are realtors even allowed to be pastors too?"
The clueless mob goes after another scalp
Most Americans probably read about “cancel culture” and how it is used to separate conservatives and adults with deeply held religious beliefs from their livelihoods — and think, “That could never happen to me.”
Beware. If you are a realtor, you could be next. As legal scholar Eugene Volokh wrote, the National Association of Realtors has a new standard of conduct code that bans “harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
The code applies to “public posting of hate speech,” which means that realtors who post sincerely-held political or religious beliefs, even on their non-business social media accounts, could lose their ability to practice their trade.
Warning. You don’t have to say anything reasonable people would see as “hate speech” to be sanctioned for “hate speech.”
Missoula, Montana realtor Brandon Huber is a part-time realtor as well as the lead pastor of the Clinton Community Church in the area. The church had been partnering with the Missoula Food Bank to distribute free lunches to children in the summer. When the food bank began inserting LGBTQ “Pride” notes in the “Kids Eat Free” lunches, the church decided to opt out because the notes, Huber explained, “went against our biblical doctrine.”
“Against our biblical doctrine.” Apparently, that’s “hate speech.”
After Huber sent out a letter to his parishioners explaining his decision, someone in Clinton filed a complaint that charged Huber with an ethics violation of the Realtors’ code. The Missoula Organization of Realtors looked into the matter and agreed with the complaint to the extent it found “potentially unethical conduct.”
If the complaint prevails, Huber could lose his access to MLS listings — and hence his ability to do the job.
On Nov. 2, I interviewed John McWhorter, author of “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America” for the Commonwealth Club. You can watch here and see how the interview made it into my most recent column here.
I highly recommend this book. It starts with the story of Alison Roman, a New York Times food writer who criticized Marie Kondo and Chrissy Tiegen for their commercialism. Kondo is Japanese and Tiegen is half white, half Thai. The Twitter mob decided her criticism was racist — even thought Roman made no mention or allusion to their race — and eventually cost Roman her job. Roman’s story prompted McWhorter to write the book.
“To criticize them if you’re white is some kind of moral transgression,” McWhorter told me. “And all of us know except for roughly seven and a half people who are probably responsible for getting her fired, that it makes no sense for her to lose her job for these off-handed criticisms of these two very rich, very influential people, neither of whom think of themselves as ‘at the hands of white hegemony.’ Both of them were perplexed at all of this, and yet that's the way it had to be. And I thought, ‘Wow,’ and this is the main thing I thought. I thought the people who got Alison Roman fired thought they were doing a good thing. I wasn't thinking that they're holding pitchforks and running down a hill. I thought these are peaceable, sensible, probably over educated people who genuinely thought that what they did was the right thing. But the thing is, most of the rest of us know that what they did was a barbarity…”
Read the complaint against Huber. It starts on page 17 and it should terrify you.
The woman who filed the complaint against Huber — her name is redacted in the document I have — likely fits into that category. She writes with no sense of irony:
“It's a sad day when supporting inclusivity means being excluded and even shunned from an entire community.”
It’s also pretty clear that she wants to have a bunch of boards and panels decide who gets to make a living and how — depending on whether those individuals share her politics. If they don’t share her politics, they’re haters.
In her rambling statements, the complainant actually asks:
“Are realtors even allowed to be Pastors too?”
Yes, a person with this shallow an understanding of the working world actually got the realtors to turn on one of their own. That door is now open. So who’s next?
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.
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