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McGrath bill ignores gays

To the editor,

Representative McGrath's proposed bill to bar opposite-sex visitors from college dorm rooms is only one of the latest moves by our state representatives to legislate morality. This is no surprise. But to some of us in the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered (LGBT) communities, it is the ultimate in irony. Finally, legislation regarding sexuality that is not proposed to attack our intimate personal relationships. This legislation not only ignores us, but it lets us slip under the radar of the representatives' latest fetish de jour. We can have our sexual partners stay in our dorm rooms all night long, and the state legislature has nothing to say about it. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" meets the dorms. Now the dorms can become hotbeds of homomania, free from the influence of those immoral heterosexual acts that Ms. McGrath so much wants to curtail!

Of course I am being facetious. LGBTs are no more or no less promiscuous than non-gays (a term that many in our community prefer to straits, as the mirror of straight implies that we are somehow bent). I only write such nonsense to prove a point. I assume that a great many of the non-gay residents of our state and of our college dorms are offended that our legislators would attempt to invade their most intimate personal realm - their sexuality - "for their own good." It is preposterous to treat consenting adults this way. It is even more preposterous for elected officials to do so.

I respectfully request of my non-gay brothers and sisters that, when reflecting on this issue, they recognize one reality: the LGBT community takes such assaults on its sexuality from our political leaders almost annually.

While I have empathy for my non-gay peers that might be affected by this bill, they must remember that this is just a mild example of the "moral majority's" vile wrath: the latest bill from Jean McGrath.

Patrick J. Dooley

UA law student