A landlord in Canada's Northwest Territory is facing the Human Rights Commission after he tore up a gay couple's lease because
God would smite him for renting to queers.
Speaking in his own defence in a Yellowknife boardroom, property owner Will Goertzen read from the Bible as he attempted to justify his not honouring a lease with Scott Robertson and Richard Anthony after finding out they were a couple. Homosexuality "isn't natural and it's a crime against nature. I can definitely not have a part in it," Goertzen told a commission adjudicator on Tuesday. "We all die and after that is the judgment." Robertson and Anthony, who say they ended up homeless for 10 days, are asking the commission to award them $23,500 each, for punitive damages and damages for "injury to dignity, feelings and self respect." Robertson is also asking for $930 in compensation for time he missed at work to deal with the matter. They have already taken Goertzen before the territory's rental court and received compensation for a $1,150 damage deposit Goertzen cashed after they signed the initial lease. "I don't know how more clear the discrimination could be and I guess that's why it's so shocking for us," Robertson told the adjudicator.
The landlord maintains that God has supremacy over any man-made laws.
Labels: bigotry, Canada, housing, religion
A landlord in Canada's Northwest Territory is facing the Human Rights Commission after he tore up a gay couple's lease because God would smite him for renting to queers. 
