Pastor fighting to keep realtor license after complaints about biblical social media posts
A Virginia realtor is facing the possibility of having his license revoked over social media posts as concerns mount about the status of free speech for those working in real estate and other professions.
Wilson Fauber, a Staunton, Virginia-based realtor with a career spanning four decades, appeared before the Virginia Association of Realtors on Wednesday in a hearing to determine whether he violated the National Association of Realtors’ Standard of Practice 10-5. Adopted in 2020, the standard declares that realtors “must not use harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex disability, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
“This all started, you could say, with a post that Wilson made on social media in 2015,” Fauber's attorney, Michael Sylvester of the Founding Freedoms Law Center at the Virginia Family Foundation, told The Christian Post.
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Noting how the post came as the U.S. Supreme Court was considering whether same-sex marriage was a constitutional right in the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Sylvester stressed that Fauber offered his analysis on the matter in his capacity as a Christian minister. Sylvester explained that Fauber “posted the biblical view on marriage,” sharing thoughts from the Rev. Franklin Graham on the matter. “He never faced any ... blowback or pushback,” Sylvester said.
Fauber’s social media post highlighting the biblical position on marriage came up when he was running for public office eight years later. Asked if he “still stands by his Christian beliefs on this topic,” Sylvester told CP that his client answered in the affirmative: “He loves everyone. He serves everyone. He doesn’t hate anyone, he doesn’t discriminate against anyone, but he stands with the Word of God.”
Earlier this year, Fauber’s social media posts became the subject of a complaint lodged with the Virginia Association of Realtors over the purported violation of the National Association of Realtors’ Standard of Practice 10-5. Sylvester expressed disappointment that the Virginia Association of Realtors did not dismiss the complaint as “frivolous” but rather “issued a statement a few months afterward in April saying that if the allegations are true, then Wilson may have violated this new hate speech rule.”
“Our position is that Wilson said nothing that constitutes hate speech. Instead, he comes from a heart of love and he serves everyone,” Sylvester countered.
The hearing, which was expected to last at least four hours, consisted of “the presentation of witnesses and cross-examination about [Fauber’s] religious expressions.” Sylvester expects a decision about his client’s future within the next week. If the Virginia Association of Realtors sides against Fauber, he has the option to appeal within the association.
Sylvester views Fauber’s situation as something that could have an impact extending far beyond the real estate profession. “What Wilson’s problem is is everyone’s problem because this same standard of practice, 10-5, that we’re talking about has been held up by some as a model that perhaps other professions should adopt as well,” he warned.
Sylvester expressed concern about the possibility of pastors who are also lawyers having “their sermons or their social media posts put under great scrutiny when they’re trying to act in the ministerial capacity” if “their professional legal associations tried to constrain their speech.” Insisting that “you could imagine the same thing about physicians” who also serve as pastors, Sylvester identified Fauber’s case as “the tip of the iceberg.”
“We want to head it off now before other associations adopt similar drastic rules,” he added. Fauber agreed that Standard of Practice 10-5 was problematic and called for its repeal: “It’s really an invasion of privacy. It’s a drastic overreach because the National Association of Realtors has voted to give themselves the power if they wish to police realtor social media of any type.”
According to Fauber, “If I were to read a scripture such as Leviticus 18:22 and just close the Bible and not make any comment at all, if someone — and I’m a realtor and a minister — and if someone is offended by that, even if they’re not in the service but someone tells them that I read that passage of scripture, then any person, you don’t have to be a realtor, any person can file a complaint against that minister-realtor and be in the same shoes that I’m in right now. And that should not be; that’s an invasion of my privacy.
Fauber identified the penalties for those found to have violated Standard of Practice 10-5 as fines ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 and removal from the National Association of Realtors and their state Association of Realtors. He stated that such a course of action could result in realtors losing access to the Multiple Listing Service, which he characterized as an essential tool that realtors have to use to stay in business: “If you do not have access to the Multiple Listing Service, you’re out of business.”
Sylvester described the Multiple Listing Service as “the database that real estate agents go to find out all kinds of information about houses that are up for sale and to list houses for sale” and “the key tool for the trade as a real estate agent.” He maintained that “to have that access revoked would be career-ending for so many real estate agents.”
This is particularly true for Fauber because although there are about a dozen private Multiple Listing Services not affiliated with the National Association of Realtors, none of them exist in his area.
Fauber is not the first realtor to have his license challenged over his views on contentious social issues. Sylvester detailed how a Georgia-based realtor named Julie Mauck, who “spoke at a school board meeting against certain graphic and homosexual content being used in her public school system,” faced an “ethics complaint.” While Mauck “lost at her first hearing with the Georgia Association of Realtors,” she ultimately secured a “favorable outcome” after appealing the decision.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
