The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is facing legal pushback for allegedly censoring conservative Christian real estate agents for their personal beliefs.
Critics are slamming NAR’s ethics code, specifically Article 10-5, for serving as a “weaponization tool” that’s been used to further conservative Christian “persecution.” Several of these realtors claiming their rights and businesses have been targeted are now pursuing legal action against the NAR or other parties involved.
Virginia realtor and broker Wilson Fauber, Arizona realtor Chad DeVries and Georgia realtor Julie Mauck, all self-professing conservative Christians, have filed lawsuits or have said they intend to file against the NAR, their local realtor associations or individuals who brought ethics complaints against them under the NAR’s Article 10-5.
Fauber has discussed taking legal action against the NAR and the Virginia Association of Realtors (VAR) after they both ruled that he was guilty of “hate speech” for posting a Bible verse with commentary ten years ago on his personal Facebook page.
Fauber served clients and was active in ministry for 44 years until the National Association of Realtors informed him in early 2024 that someone had filed an ethics complaint against him for his Facebook post, citing that it was discriminatory against the LGBT community.
“This originated in 2015 when I reposted and restructured one of Franklin Graham’s posts,” Fauber, 70, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. On Feb. 13, 2015, Fauber reposted Rev. Franklin Graham’s Article that cited the Bible verse Leviticus 18:22, which Fauber said was the “centerpiece of the case.”
The Virginia Realtors conducted a hearing in December, which ruled that Fauber was guilty of violating Article 10-5 of the NAR Ethics code. Fauber and his lawyer Michael Sylvester, with the Founding Freedoms Law Center, filed an appeal which led to a second hearing on Feb. 13. The appeals panel affirmed the original ruling, and their decision is final.
“The sum of this is: a religious realtor is being punished for expressing his faith-based opinions on an important moral issue,” Sylvester told the DCNF.
The VAR deemed Fauber a “discriminator” and he has been “ordered” to “undergo multiple re-education programs,” according to a Founding Freedoms Law Center press release.
The NAR “politely declined” to provide a comment to the DCNF, and the VAR did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
“I’m being told by my trade organization what I can and cannot talk about that’s wrong. And I’m fighting,” Fauber said. “I’m fighting, and I’m going to continue to fight.” Fauber added that he was willing to take the case to the Supreme Court.
“They found me guilty of hate speech, that is wrong. I didn’t discriminate against anyone, and I’m not guilty of hate speech,” Fauber continued. “I’ve not directed my remarks or scriptures towards any individual.”
Fauber argued that the opposite is true. “Hate is being directed toward me because I am a Bible-believing Christian,” Fauber added. “I continue to affirm I believe the Bible from cover to cover.”
The association is the largest trade organization in the United States, with 1.5 million realtors.
Details of the consequences of the ruling are not yet public, though the NAR has the power to fine Fauber from $5,000 to $15,000 and effectively end his career as a broker. Fauber could lose his membership to the NAR, VAR and his local association of realtors. Expulsion from the NAR means that Fauber loses access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), an essential communication and listing tool for those in the real estate industry.
While the NAR is not a governmental agency, they can make a case that Fauber is unworthy of his license to the government.
To be found guilty of an ethics violation is as serious as embezzlement in the real estate business, according to Rob Hahn, managing partner at a real estate consulting firm for 15 years and renowned real estate blogger.
Hahn confirmed the necessity of the MLS to those in the real estate business. “The MLS is like LexisNexis for lawyers,” Hahn told the DCNF.
Hahn has interviewed many others in the real estate business facing similar “persecution,” as he termed it. “No one’s ever been charged with making anti-white statements, no one’s ever been charged with making anti-Christian statements, even though the Code of Ethics makes it clear you can’t discriminate on the basis of religion,” Hahn said.
The business owner argued that there are already protections outlined in the ethics code, so Article 10-5 does not serve to protect clients from unequal service.
Hahn has platformed Fauber and Arizona realtor Chad DeVries, both conservative Christians suffering consequences after they expressed their biblical worldview on LGBT issues. Both made their sentiments outside of work time, on personal social media accounts and not in reference to any specific individual. Both have served clients for decades in the business and have even worked with gay clients.
“My gay clients are some of my best clients,” DeVries told Hahn on his “Notorious Rob” podcast. DeVries also noted in the interview that he has two gay children that are married to members of the same sex. After DeVries reposted several memes about LGBT issues on his personal Instagram account, someone filed an ethics complaint against him. He is now suing the Arizona Association of Realtors (AAR) and four other realtors who brought the 10-5 complaint against him.
“We used to be able to laugh in this country,” DeVries continued. “Who determines what post is right or wrong?”
Ryan Heath, DeVries’ lawyer, told the DCNF that “everyone should have the right to speak freely without fear” and that the AAR is doing this for “ideological purposes, which is rather upsetting.”
The AAR did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Hahn has also interviewed Montana realtor Brandon Huber, another pastor accused of “hate speech” for refusing to participate in a Missoula “Kids Eat Free” food bank event because his church did not support the use of LGBT inserts in the lunches that read “pride,” “love always wins” and “love is love.” Huber also filed a lawsuit against the Missoula Organization of Realtors in 2021, which a Missoula judge dismissed in 2022.
In 2023, former Republican Montana state Sen. Keith Regier sponsored Senate Bill 243 to ensure that Christian realtors could freely express their faith, which was “largely in response” to Huber’s case, according to the Daily Montanan.
Another Christian realtor and minister Matt Moore from Minnesota left the real estate industry in 2021 over this same issue. “My current broker will not allow me to continue working under her … if I continue to speak publicly about LGBTQ+ issues,” he told Faithwire.
Georgia realtor Julie Mauck told the DCNF that she also lost the support of her broker for a time after some members of a pride group accused her of saying that “everybody in the LGBT community were pedophiles,” which she denies ever saying.
Mauck said this all stems from her protesting a “sexually explicit” book, “Flamer,” at her local library that was to be placed in the children’s section in July 2023. The Moms for Liberty activist noted that the protesters didn’t ask for the book removed from the library, but to be moved to the adult section and only accessible to children if given parental permission.
Mauck said that local Facebook groups had posted her information and links to report her for an Article 10-5 ethics violation for this, and provided screenshots reviewed by the DCNF.
Mauck was found guilty in her first ethics hearing but appealed the committee’s findings and won the appeal. With support from the Coalition for Liberty, Mauck and her lawyer, Jonathan Vogel, are now going on the offensive and suing those who tried to “cancel” her, ruin her career as a realtor and to “otherwise harm her reputation,” according to the lawsuit. Mauck’s opening brief is due March 20.
“We fully support the NAR Code of Ethics that protects Americans from housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity,” an official from the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance told the DCNF in a statement. “Because REALTORS are public facing as they work to attract and best serve clients, we believe those who publicly discriminate in any facet of their lives are in violation of Article 10 of the NAR Code of Ethics.”
Critics of Article 10-5 also point to how Christian realtors don’t feel safe to express their beliefs, yet many realtors’ associations freely express support for LGBT events. One example is the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors (CAAR), which hosted a “fair housing symposium” that featured a “drag show and fireside chat” sponsored by CAAR’S DEI committee in November 2024.
Leigh Brown, long-time North Carolina realtor and author told the DCNF that “NAR needs a DOGE. Big time.” Brown was the vice president of advocacy in 2021 at the NAR and ran for the position of first vice president before she was “blocked from the ballot” for “social media posts deemed offensive.”
“I’m a conservative Christian,” she said. “If I had been a conservative Christian who kept my mouth shut, they might not have gone after those social posts.”
Brown said she teaches the ethics code and affirms that though there were a few real cases of discriminatory language from realtors that led to the amendment of Article 10-5 in 2020, it has since become a “weaponization tool.”
“The current way the language is structured in 10-5 is not helpful,” Brown said. Critics like Brown and others say that the problem is that it is too “broad” and that some realtors are targeted more for their speech than others. “It’s very Animal Farm.”
Brown stepped down from the NAR board as she did not feel she could “effectively serve” an organization that could “treat a member like it’s treated” her, though she noted that she must keep her membership in order to continue her business.
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