‘If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone’: Pastor fights to keep license after posting electrifying Bible verse

A Virginia real estate broker faces the prospect of losing his license and paying a hefty fine because of a Facebook post about a Bible verse about homosexuality.

On Feb. 13, 2015, Staunton-based broker Wilson Fauber reposted the Rev. Franklin Graham’s post citing a verse in the Bible and added commentary from his own perspective as a pastor.

After 44 years in the business with a clear record, Fauber learned that the National Association of Realtors received an ethics complaint about him earlier this year.

The “real basis of that complaint was from 2015, when I posted Leviticus 18:22,” he told The Daily Signal.

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination,” reads Leviticus 18:22, as translated by the English Standard Version of the Bible.

The Virginia Association of Realtors conducted a hearing Wednesday regarding the complaint against Fauber. If found guilty of an ethics violation, he could be fined $5,000 to $15,000 and effectively lose his career as a broker. The National Association of Realtors also can appeal to the government, making the case that Fauber is unworthy of his real estate license.

A ruling was expected as early as this week.

“A lot is at stake,” Fauber told The Daily Signal. “They have the option to remove me from membership in the National Association of Realtors, the Virginia Association of Realtors, and our local association of realtors.”

Fauber also noted that the National Association of Realtors could remove him from the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, a communication and listing tool for those in the real estate industry. Removal from the MLS “puts you out of business,” he said.

One housing appraiser from California corroborated the importance of the MLS. “There is nothing as robust as the MLS out there,” he told The Daily Signal. “I couldn’t imagine an agent saying, ‘I don’t have access to the MLS.’”

The National Association of Realtors calls itself the largest trade organization in the United States, where there are 1.5 million Realtors.

“This is an egregious overreach by the National Association of Realtors, and they have set a precedent for other organizations to follow,” Fauber said. “There is no doubt, out of one and a half million [Realtors], there would be hundreds of thousands of Christians just like me.”

A devout Christian, Fauber founded Arise International Ministries and has conducted dozens of missionary trips across South America.

“I’m 70 years old and I’ve been a Christian for 51 years,” Fauber said. “If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.”

In 2023, Fauber ran for Staunton City Council. The opposition scoured his Facebook page, found the post addressing homosexual relationships in light of Scripture, and then branded him “the hater,” Fauber recalled.

“I don’t hate anyone. I love all people,” he said. “All people are God’s creation, and I’ve never directed any of my memes or Scriptures towards any individual.”

During the campaign for council, he said, “it got so bad and so heated that there were concerns for my personal safety and the safety of my wife and family.”

Once Fauber lost the election, he said, he believed the nightmare was over.

Fauber defined what is happening as “religious persecution,” although he initially hesitated to categorize it that way. He argued that, contrary to common belief, Christian persecution goes beyond physical assault.

“Their complaint is [about] the Word of God,” Fauber said. “I am a Christian, and it’s my responsibility to share the Word of God.”

William Devlin, a fellow pastor who was honored by the White House for supporting persecuted Christians and the volunteer CEO of the ministry Widows and Orphans, says he agrees this is a clear example of religious persecution.

“We have the right to free speech,” Devlin said. “This is selective persecution, and it’s selective prosecution by both the National Association of Realtors and the Virginia Association of Realtors.”

“Saying that this one Realtor cannot freely, in a non-real estate context, express his free speech privileges according to the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution [is persecution],” he said.

Fauber’s attorney was right to defend him, Devlin added.

“You cannot persecute a person of good will who is publicly stating his beliefs about marriage, because it didn’t affect any real estate sale,” Devlin said. “He’s not discriminating against any couple who comes to him. He’s not asking them, ‘Do you believe that marriage is between a man and a woman?’ He didn’t do any of that, and so he is clearly innocent.”

After witnessing Fauber’s persecution, fellow Christians should be encouraged not to back down, Devlin said.

“Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you,” Devlin said, quoting Scripture. “And that’s from a biblical perspective. But from a constitutional perspective, we have every right under the First Amendment to exercise our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom of assembly, [our] freedom … to petition, and there can be no abrogation of that because it’s in the Constitution.”

Real estate agent – in trouble for sharing Bible verses – won’t back down

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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