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Since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the federal Fair Housing Act 50 years ago — making discrimination against buyers or renters on the basis of race, nationality or religion illegal — there have been amendments to include sex, disability and familial status among those protected classes. But not sexual orientation. In the absence of legal protection, more than 80 businesses have signed a pledge committing themselves to LGBT-friendly practices since the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s LGBT Business Council created it in 2016. On Monday, the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors Group also signed the pledge, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the federal act and of the work left to be done. “When I look at the Lehigh Valley, I see a community that members of the LGBT community should want to call home,” said Adrian Shanker, founder and executive director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown. But only the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton have enacted local ordinances to make it illegal to discriminate against members of the LGBT community in businesses and the housing market, and Pennsylvania is one of 31 states that does not have statewide protections for sexual orientation or gender identity. “When housing is open to everyone, our neighborhoods benefit from increased diversity … and of course, Realtors benefit too because their market is more desirable for everyone,” Shanker said. There have been bills in Congress every year for the last 10 years to add sexual orientation to the protected classes, said Lori Malloy, director of legal advocacy for North Penn Legal Services. Bills are circulating in the Pennsylvania House and Senate, but partisanship is preventing them from going any further, said Rep. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat serving Lehigh County. “We can’t take politics out of politics, and these are uncomfortable conversations that people all over Pennsylvania need to be having,” he said at the signing held at the Realtors’ group office in Bethlehem. The pledge is also symbolic of a continued effort to improve ethical practices among the group’s members, after a 2011 fair housing study in Allentown found 24 of 33 real estate agents tested were steering white homebuyers out of the city, while steering minority homebuyers into the city. The study — conducted by the Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia and commissioned by Allentown and the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley — also found significant disparities in mortgage lending, with white buyers having the lowest denial rates of every income level. Since that study, the Lehigh Valley Realtors group has assembled a Diversity and Community Involvement Committee, in charge of promoting fair housing education throughout the Lehigh Valley. “Realtors adhere to a higher code of ethics, and that’s why we mobilized to action to stop these atrocities,” Realtors group CEO Justin Porembo said. Read the original article here.