Swanner v. Anchorage Equal Rights Commission

Background

A landlord in Anchorage, Alaska refused to rent his residential property to unmarried couples who planned to live together because of his sincere religious belief that cohabitation is a sin and that renting would facilitate it. State and local authorities concluded that his policy violated ordinances prohibiting housing decisions based on “marital status.” The Alaska Superior Court and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld those rulings and rejected his constitutional and statutory religious challenges. The landlord asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) protects his conduct.

Reasoning

The core question was whether preventing discrimination based on marital status is a sufficiently “compelling” government interest under RFRA to justify substantially burdening someone’s religious exercise. Justice Thomas, dissenting from the Court’s decision not to hear the case, explained that RFRA adopted the demanding Sherbert–Yoder test and expressed deep skepticism that Alaska’s asserted interest meets that high bar. He contrasted cases where racial discrimination was found compelling because of long-standing national policy with marital-status rules that lack a firm national policy and are not covered by the federal Fair Housing Act. He also pointed out that Alaska law itself treats marital status differently in several other areas.

Real world impact

Because the Supreme Court declined review, the state-court rulings remain in place and the landlord’s refusal to rent to unmarried cohabitants may continue to be treated as a violation of local and state marital-status anti-discrimination rules. The denial does not resolve the national RFRA question; whether such state interests qualify as “compelling” under RFRA remains unsettled and could be revisited in a later case.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Thomas would have granted review to settle the RFRA issue and warned that allowing marital-status interests to qualify as “compelling” would weaken statutory protection for religious exercise and leave lower courts confused.