“Happy Friday, folks,” is what I might be saying in this space on a normal day.

Happy Friday.

But is it?

Can it be?

Should those that are happy be forced not to be?

Should we look down on those that are happy, or try to encourage them not to be quite as elated, or at the very least, legislate against demonstrating positive feelings?

If a backwards world were even more backwards, would that simply turn it back around again?  I’m not sure anymore.  I truly understand the world in which we live, less and less each day, as we constantly search for problems, ways to be offended, and causes.  Oh, so many causes!

I want you to read this, carefully.  Then please, oh please, do me a favour, and read it again:

Dear Mr. Henley,

We wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves!  We are Jane and Andrew Bryson and we’re a 36-year-old couple with two beautiful children, Rory and Taylor, and we’re also hoping to be the lucky family who buys your home tonight! 🙂

We have been looking for a home now for eight months and have made offers on two houses, and lost.  But we believe that all things happen for a reason because had we not lost on those two offers, we would have never found your home!

From the moment we stepped into your front foyer, we absolutely fell in love.  That century-old mosaic tile made my (Jane) heart melt as I studied classical architecture in university but never put my degree to work.  The period pieces in the home just spoke to me and renewed my passion for a love I feel I left behind!  The home is so spacious and the pride-of-ownership beams in every room.  It’s so well-cared-for, you can just feel it everywhere.  We never thought we could find a four-bedroom house in our area, in our price point, but this house is so perfect.  We always dreamed of each of the kids having their own room with one bedroom to be used as a playroom, as both Andrew and I had similar layouts growing.  The basement bedrooms are perfect for both our home offices!

In our search for the perfect home, a great school district has always been atop the list.  At times, we thought about sacrificing the size of the house to get into a better catchment, but we feel we can actually get the house we want AND the amazing Pine Woods Public School district!

Our family is incredibly active and that’s why we place a huge premium on your home’s proximity to the Memorial Grove Park.  Andrew and I took the kids there on the weekend after our showing and we couldn’t help but daydream about talking a short half-block walk to this park every night and every weekend.

We’re so excited to be presenting our offer to purchase your home this evening and we just wanted to put some faces to names in the sea of potential buyers you’ll surely have at your doorstep tonight!

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jane, Andrew, Rory, & Taylor

I know what you’re thinking.

And we’re probably all thinking the same thing.

This kind of behaviour cannot be allowed, and we must introduce legislation to stop it.

Right?

Stay with me here, folks.  Because we can all agree that when you look at a photo like the one above, you want to discriminate against that family.  It’s impossible not to.  We don’t like white people, Asian people, happy families, smiling kids, dads who might have high-paying jobs, families who don’t own two cats, and properly-made beds.  We hate that.

Right?

ALL of us, and I mean ALL of us, are completely incapable of reading that letter, looking at that photo, and not discriminating.

Or at least, that’s what some members of society believe.

In the war to protect ourselves from ourselves, we’ve reached a new low.

The state of Oregon, which is one of the more overly progressive, backwards-bending, riot-loving places in North America, has introduced legislation to ban “love letters” to home owners.

Yes.

This country, which has many, many problems, has created a new one out of nowhere.

Here’s some shit you just can’t make up:

“One More Step Before Controversial Oregon Bill Becomes Law, Banning ‘Love Letters’ During Home Sales”

SALEM, OR (KPTV) – There is just one more step before a controversial bill, that could change the way many people buy homes, becomes law.  If signed by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, House Bill 2550 will ban the practice of ‘love letters’ during a home sale.  The measure is to help avoid buyer selection based on race, sex, or religion in violation of federal fair housing laws.

Perhaps now more than ever in this housing boom, with major investment firms looking to buy up entire neighborhoods, buyers are looking to influence sellers any way they can.  That influence usually comes in the form of a personalized letter, sometimes with family photos and desires to live in that community.  What this bill would do is give seller’s agents the ability to reject those letters.  While the bill has already passed the House and Senate, there are people who feel this is a major overreach by lawmakers.

Duke Hubbard told FOX 12 he bought the bigger home his family needed in Gresham in February.

“We explained that we were in the process of adopting two more kids. Brother and sister, one and three years old.  Wanted to keep them together. And without knowing [the seller’s] position, they had just got through adopting their son’s kids.  Their son had passed away in a car wreck.  So, there was a little bit of…pulling on the heartstrings there, which we had no idea at the time that that had happened to them,” he said.

Hubbard said his bid came in at least $15,000 less than others.

While buyers will still be able to reach sellers directly, the measure still doesn’t sit well with buyers, especially first-time home buyers.  FOX 12 also heard from a couple realtors who feel censoring letters is undue interference, adding there are already laws in place to make discrimination illegal.

But the bill’s chief sponsor who is a real estate agent himself, Rep. Mark Meek, D-Clackamas County, said it’s implicit bias that’s the issue.

“The only way that I saw, and a way that we can practically and very simply eliminate that practice, is just to not allow those letters.  We’re not impinging on free speech, the buyer can still write the letter, but the seller’s agent is no longer required to pass that information along,” said Meek.

If the governor signs the bill into law, it will not take effect until January 1.

Come on, man.

Really?

Are we really at this point?

Yes, discrimination exists.  So does racism.  And in America?  Oh, don’t get me started.

But what does this legislation say about society’s view of itself?

The people who wrote this bill are basically accusing themselves of not being able to view that family photo above without finding a reason not to like people therein.  Or, they’re making the assumption that other people out there are inherently racist, and thus any information provided to the seller which could allow the sellers to identify the buyers, and thus evaluate and/or discriminate, must be BANNED.

This is what we’ve devolved into as a society.

Take another positive thing in life, like a heartfelt letter from an excited buyer to a home-seller, and turn it into a negative by always looking for a problem and always assuming the worst-case scenario is not merely possible, but virtually automatic.

So don’t allow buyers to communicate with sellers.  Protect us from ourselves, please!  We need it!  We can’t do anything in life without instructions!  Legislate how we must tie our shoes, because if we always tie the left shoe first, then the right shoe might feel bad!

But why stop there?

Along these lines of thinking, we’d also need legislation to ban offer prices ending in “18,” since that’s a sure-fire way to identify Jewish people.  And we’d need to ban offer prices ending in “888” since only an Asian would offer that, right?  But Jews also offer multiples of “18,” so we can’t have 36, or 48, or 72.

But what about the names on the offer?  I’m sure when Jacques St. Laurent and his lovely wife Marguerette Lacroix are reviewing an offer for their home in rural Quebec and the buyers are James English & Clara White, the Quebecois are going to pour gasoline on the offer and light it on fire!  Just the same, when Mr. & Mrs. Jones down in Dallas, Texas see that the “Cortez” family are attempting to purchase their home, well, those good ‘ole boys will just throw that offer in the back of their Ford F150, drive it to a shooting range, and pin it up on the target.

BLAMMO!

Alright, well how about a realistic example?

Let’s say that a couple from Toronto write a letter about their love for a particular house in Prince Edward County, and that seller hates the fact that yuppies from Toronto are buying houses in the country, and that seller decides not to sell to them.  Is that discrimination?

Yes.  Absolutely.

Is it any different than a seller writing on the MLS listing, “Blacks, Gays, & Jews need not submit offers”?

Yes.  Absolutely.

Discrimination is possible in all areas of life.  I’m a realist, so I’m going to inform the naive, right here, and right now, that it will never go away.  But if we continue to look for every single area in life where it could take place, and then try to eliminate that scenario, then we may as well just wrap ourselves in bubble-paper and stay home forever.

The idea that banning “love letters” to sellers is going to eliminate discrimination is ridiculous.  It’s classic legislation to show action, of which there is far too much in North America right now.

The irony is: I would have expected this legislation from the Canadian federal government, not a state government in the US of A.  The problem is: I can see somebody tapping maple syrup up here and then thinking, “Hey, that’s actually a great idea!”

There is real racism and discrimination going on in the world today.  The newspaper headlines this week were horrific, and a constant reminder that we’re only decades removed from genocide in our own backyard.

So why are law-makers spending their time trying to censor mail?

The sponsor of the Oregon bill said:

The only way that I saw, and a way that we can practically and very simply eliminate that practice, is just to not allow those letters.

But where does it end?

People who date are getting their hearts broken.  So the only way I see, and a way that we can practically and very simply eliminate that, is just to not allow dating.

Some people who speak are having a difference of opinions and often discussions can get heated.  So the only way I see, and a way that we can practically and very simply eliminate that, is just to not allow talking.

We are less than a decade away from bubble-wrap.  You heard it here first, folks.

I just can’t believe that this school of so-called thought has worked its way into the real estate industry.  I wish that people with power who can effect change would use their influence in more meaningful areas.  But that’s why we have democratic elections, right?  If those in charge aren’t getting the job done, we can vote them out, right?  Oh, wait, both the USA and Canada incessantly attempt to manipulate election laws, voting rights, processes, boundaries, and geography.

Depressing, right?

Ah, yeah.  Well, I might just curl up in a ball and pull up a nice, warm…………………piece of bubble-wrap.