Federal judge issues injunction on Oregon’s banning of ‘love letters’ from home buyers to sellers

A federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking Oregon’s recent ban on homebuyer ‘love letters’ to sellers.

The state outlawed such ‘love letters’ in 2021 saying the personal letters could lead to housing discrimination based on race, gender, sexual preferences and other illegal reasons that could be exposed in such letters.

The conservative legal group Pacific Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit to block the state’s ban on the letters last year, saying the state has no evidence to prove any such discrimination is occurring, and that state and federal laws already make housing discrimination illegal.

This week, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction, which blocks the Oregon law, which was enacted in June last year. The judge said the law goes too far in blocking the right to free speech, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Marco Hernández wrote that Oregon “could have addressed the problem of housing discrimination without infringing on protected speech to such a degree.”

He also gave credit to the law’s good intent, saying the state’s “long and abhorrent history of racial discrimination in property ownership and housing” does need to be addressed, but not by this law.