I just read Craig's List's FAQ on the California Fair Housing Act. Apparently, it is now illegal in California to advertise personal preferences about who you would room with.
I do not know the logic that led to this act. Is it illegal to choose a roommate based on personal preferences? That is, no matter how much they smell, no matter how annoying they are, no matter that you argue with them all the time, no matter that your religions each damn the other to hell? If you meet the perfect person that you just click with, are you not allowed to prefer them? In a word, when it comes to who you live with, why not let people discriminate?
Perhaps, instead, it is legal to choose based on such preferences, but not to advertise them. But then the law makes no sense. Why require people not to state what they are asking for?
I imagine that this law is simply the logical extreme of some other policy. Either that, or voters saw the word "discriminate" in the act and voted against it. I would be interested in what exactly the logic was, and where it broke down. I am also interested in how such a thing came to become law. Did no one think about the implications? Do Californians just not have roommates ?