Paying for Hate, Monthly
Capitol Hill Renters Discover Their Landlord Is Funding the Anti-Gay-Marriage Campaign
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Tenants of eight Capitol Hill buildings are organizing a pro-marriage-equality fundraiser on September 22 after discovering that their landlord recently made a large donation to Preserve Marriage Washington, the campaign opposing marriage equality on the fall ballot.
Breier-Scheetz Properties, LLC, contributed $20,000 to Preserve Marriage Washington on August 24, according to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. That makes the property owner and management firm the fourth largest donor to the campaign attempting to reject Referendum 74 and thereby block a state law to legalize same-sex marriages.
Stranger Personals
"This property company is profiting off the backs of primarily LGBT people who live on Capitol Hill," says Dane Boog, a resident of the Breier-Scheetz-owned New McDermott Apartments. He and his neighbors were very upset to discover that their rent is helping fund an anti-gay campaign, he says.
Such a clash between tenants and landlord seems particularly stinging on Capitol Hill, hub of the region's LGBT community. Some residents say the generous anti-gay donation is a blatant slap in the face to the hundreds, if not thousands, of tenants living in Breier-Scheetz Properties' 438 apartment and condo units in the neighborhood.
The tenants also believe that their attempts to organize a fundraiser for a pro-gay-marriage campaign earlier this summer may have provoked the anti-gay property firm to make its big donation.
A tenant of the Granada Apartments at Belmont Avenue and East Howell Street named April, who asked that her last name be withheld, says the trouble began in June, when she first approached her property manager (and Breier-Scheetz employee) JoAnn Huth about hosting a small fundraiser for Washington United for Marriage, the campaign working to approve the marriage-equality law. Although Huth initially gave April and her boyfriend Ben Allen, who also lives in the seven-story building, the green light for an event, the tune changed a few weeks later.
A gay-rights fundraiser "was not something we want to have at the Granada," Huth reportedly told April on behalf of Frederick Scheetz, owner of Breier-Scheetz Properties. The rejection struck April as strange: The Granada's tenants often host events in its lush courtyard and, to her knowledge, no one has ever been told they couldn't have a party.
Huth, Scheetz, and representatives of Breier-Scheetz all declined to be interviewed for this story to explain their thinking. But in July 25 and July 28 e-mails obtained by The Stranger, Huth told April that the property owner stood by the refusal to allow a fundraiser.
So April contacted a lawyer.
"The only apparent reason for you to bar [April's] event is due to her political ideology or the political ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity of her guests," attorney Justin R. Jensen wrote in an August 1 letter to Breier-Scheetz. "All three of these are protected classes in the city of Seattle, and... [that] is illegal discrimination."
The couple never heard back from Scheetz or Huth. So on August 16, following the advice of their lawyer, April and Allen went ahead with their fundraiser. In two hours, the couple raised $1,800 for marriage equality.
But Breier-Scheetz Properties escalated the clash the following week, making its $20,000 donation to the anti-gay PAC.
"I think that if other tenants knew their rent money was going to hate organizations, they'd be as enraged as I am," April says. She and Allen want to out-fundraise Breier- Scheetz for marriage equality, so, along with other tenants, they are planning the Party to Out-Raise Breier-Scheetz, tentatively scheduled for 3 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, September 22.
"I was outraged when I heard," Boog adds. "But it's amazing to see people rallying against this. It's grassroots organizing at its best."
And there are likely more people like Boog, April, and Allen.
According to King County property tax records, Breier-Scheetz Properties owns nine residential buildings on Capitol Hill: the Hillsborough Condominiums, Lenawee Apartments, Terrace Crest Apartments, the New McDermott Apartments, Mission Inn Apartments, the Granada Apartments, Corinthian Apartments, Second and Pine Apartments, and a duplex at 604 East Howell Street.
"We're sending them a message: Don't come into our community, take our money, and use it against us," says Allen. 
But not everybody does. And everybody has the right to defend their beliefs.
In this case, my support goes to the landlord. Despite what an overzealous attorney may believe, the landlord is not required to allow ANYBODY to host a party in their building regardless of political ideology, sexual orientation or gender. They are required not to discriminate in the RENTING of the apartment and it seems they are in complete compliance.
Time for April to grow up and get a life. And time for all LGBT tenants of Breier-Scheetz Properties to put their money where their mouths are. Either shut up or move out.
David, please get a clue. Cities, counties and states all write anti-discriminatory laws for housing which includes social/personal life styles as well as race, religion, etc.
Speaking of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, I was bike riding on 11th near Pine and stopped in awe of the mostly in-pink art and design all the way up into the 2nd story of an empty commercial space, with anti-Rape slogans, eg.,("a date does not= booty")
That graffiti art will do more to pull the young vote in the neighborhood than any of the $20,000 contribution by the Capitol landlords.
And of course I realize that the city has anti-discrimination policies that protect people of all sexual orientations. I'm fine with that too.
But in the article, April sought to use a common area to host a political fundraiser. This is not a customary use of the common areas, and the landlord certainly has a right to dictate which activities will be allowed in common areas of the building. Since April is not renting the common area, discrimination does not come into play. The landlord may be opposed to the political fundraiser, or maybe his liability insurance just doesn't cover a party of that size in the courtyard. The reason really doesn't matter.
April could host the fundraiser in her own apartment. Of course that would be perfectly fine. But it seems like making a big stinking deal about someone exercising their private property rights will probably get her an extra five minutes of fame, so she'll go that route instead.
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I understand. If I held your views, I wouldn't be able to defend them, either.
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He's an awful man, with too much money. Boycott his apartments. He's an asshole.
You have demonstrated to be morally healthy, unsusceptible to social brainwashing and having integrity. Marriage for the homosexual degenerates is corruption of the institution of marriage and a brutal violation of the nature’s order.
No approval for the homosexual depravity! No capitulation to the pro-pervert, intolerant gangsters!
"They are required not to discriminate in the RENTING of the apartment..."
So if "no gays in the courtyard" is OK, how about "no blacks in the pool"?
Unfortunately for Mr. Sheetz, the law requires non-discrimination with regard to common areas as well as rental agreements.
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It also makes me wonder how many more property owners out there support causes detrimental to our culture... but are smart enough not to be so open about it. You could be living under or working for one or more of them right now.
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