In New Jersey, a homeowner’s religious freedom claim could fail because it falls between the cracks of the state law’s exclusion for renting out part of an owner-occupied home. Yesterday’s Morris County Daily Record reports that homeowner Joe Fabrics requires the four tenants in his New Brunswick, NJ property to sign a lease that informs them that "This is a Christian household" and "If you hate God, don’t move in". The director of New Jersey’s Division of Human Rights says that this could be illegal religious discrimination. Fabrics owns a two-family home. He occupies it as a residence and also rents to four other tenants. New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination, Sec. 10:5-5(n) excludes from coverage "the rental (1) of a single apartment … in a two-family dwelling, the other occupancy unit of which is occupied by the owner as a residence; or (2) of a room or rooms to another person or persons by the owner … of a one-family dwelling occupied by the owner … as a residence at the time of such rental."
Fabrics, who says that his home contains two religious statues that weep holy tears, says that if after he makes his feelings clear, someone who does not believe in God insists on moving in, he will let them do so.
