I recently read with interest a letter from Rae Jones of Bisbee (Nov. 12), learning many things: (1) gays and lesbians comprise “at least 10 percent” of our population, (2) homosexuals cannot visit their “life partners” in hospitals, (3) they cannot inherit a house built with such a partner, and (4) the writer hopes for a change from the courts.
I would like to know where the round figure of 10 percent came from. I doubt its veracity. And hospitals refusing friends to visit a patient, unless in an isolation ward? It just doesn’t compute. And contract law should cover the conveyance of real estate. Maybe the writer meant tax considerations, I don’t know. As for courts, they do make decisions having the effect of legislation that have neither public support nor a constitutional basis.
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Marriage is in enough trouble already in this highly imperfect world. Its religious and legal status should be maintained. Having said that, however, I do endorse domestic partnerships between any two adults, be they mother and son, two sisters, two cousins, two unrelated persons, etc.
As far as I am concerned, they could have all of the legal rights of a traditional married couple. And I do not care and do not want to know about any sexual relationships between the domestic partners. The danger with this proposal, of course, is the dilution of the desirability to legally marry in the first place.
This proposal would probably meet with only grudging approval by the gay activists, however. Their primary goal, as I see it, is complete acceptance by society. But this will happen only with forced gene therapy on the 75 percent of the population that happens to be heterosexual.
Dave Anderson
Sierra Vista
