On January 24, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed new rules designed to improve equal housing access for LGBT individuals.
The measure would prohibit any housing aid groups that receive federal funding from discriminating against gays, lesbians or transgender persons.
In an explanation of the proposed rules, HUD cited recent studies indicating that LGBT persons face discrimination in the private housing market, while one in five transgender individuals report bias as the root cause of their homelessness.
U.S. Catholic bishops have opposed the new measures and are now urging federal housing officials not to move forward with the anti-discrimination policies. Lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops argue that such rules would force certain religious groups to compromise their beliefs in order to receive funding.
Anthony Picarello and Michael Moses, two of the lawyers in question, commented in a letter to HUD that “faith-based and other organizations should retain the freedom they have always had to make housing placements in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs, including when it concerns a cohabiting couple, be it an unmarried heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple,”
