If they need a place to spend their last days, the L.A. Times says that Sunset Hall--a retirement home devoted to elderly Los Angeles communists and eager for new residents--is quite good.

Elderly gays with money, like some of my parents' friends, don't have these problems, and there are many social outlets for older gays like SAGE(Seniors Active in A Gay Environment). There are resorts and cruises that cater to them as well.

Great, Bart, let's just give everyone a few million and all our problems will disappear.

Peter, where's your compassion, man? Or empathy? Seriously, my first instinct upon reading this story was to ask Our Lord to ease the loneliness of such people. Sounds like you on the other hand are enjoying the fact that they've ended up like they deserved to. Also, it doesn't sound so much as something arranged by "social servives" as two citizens who saw a need and decided to do something about it, i.e., independent charity work. Just some friendly advice . . . start at "There but for the grace of God go I," and move from there. God didn't "make" me homosexual, but He in His wisdom gave me another cross to bear. How we struggle with these things (and the fact that we never give up fighting, getting up off the ground) is the important thing. Everyone of those lonely elederly homosexuals is a human soul that God loves exactly as much as He loves Peter Burnet.

Elderly loneliness isn't confined to homosexuals.

OJ's right, how many kids come to visit mom in the home?

Why not just live in an elderly complex?

Boris:

What's with the "cross to bear"? Sandy is right, all elderly lonely merit compassion, but you seem to suggest it is preordained among gays and that it is somehow different and more poignant for them. Isn't it a little rich to demand we honour and celebrate their childless, inward-looking lives as equally valid and natural, and then reserve a special compassion when those lives end in solitude as anyone could have foretold?

If it makes you feel better, the post would have spoken equally to aging lotharios.

Peter:

I don't see anywhere a demand that "... we honour and celebrate their childless lives ..."

It is worth that elderly gays, who didn't ask to be born that way, often have faced a life of ostracism.

Perpetrated by Christians who, if they were true to their word, would know better.

Jeff:

And Jews, too. Write "perpetrated by Jews..." and see how you sound.

P.S. How about giving us an example of a gay who has "faced a life of ostracism."

Peter,

Gay people, because they don't have kids, tend to have lots more disposible income than straights. Therefore, they do not generally suffer from the kind of loneliness that plagues the poor, childless(or abandoned by their families) elderly. They are free to do lots of stuff that eases the pain. I know many gays in that category.

I don't know about ostracism of gays, but they do congregate in areas where there is a gay community rather than living in isolated areas where they might be the only gay for miles. This is not unusual for any minority group member.

Peter:

Did not Christians perpetrate such ostracism? Do they not, some anyway, do so now?

Perhaps ostracism wasn't exactly the correct word; Hobbes Choice would have been better: forced to choose between a lifetime of deceit on the one hand, or ostracism on the other.

An acquaintance of mine, Janice S., has been completely ostracized by her fundamentalist Christian family, at the urging of their pastor and the church's congregation.

Do I need to name another, or is one enough?

Jeff, your indignation rests completely on your unstated assumption that the sexual urge must be given an outlet, that any thwarting thereof is oppressive and that issues such as marriage, etc. are quite secondary to the need to release the primal urge--hey, what else is life about?. I imagine you see that as axiomatic like much of society today. That this general view is very recent and that Janice would have been similarly shunned had she just shacked up with a man for much of our history seems to be completely off your radar screen. I understand. Who wants complications, subtleties and ambiguities interfering when he can get all lathered up about a new human right and take on the whole philosophical basis of Western culture. Bad Christianity!!

You know very well that no one is trying to prevent Janice from living her chosen life. Are you saying we all owe a duty to embrace her within family and community? If so, you aren't really fighting for gay rights as much as compulsory amorality.

Peter:

Wrong. My indignation rests upon treating the ignorant nonsense in Leviticus as if it were a fax from God.

My previously stated assumption is that homosexuality has no more inherent moral component than heterosexuality, and that treating homosexuality as if it is (pardon me if I'm using the wrong term here) ipso facto evil.

In order for that position to make sense, one must conclude that God created homosexuals only to turn around and condemn them for a choice that wasn't theirs to make.

And that it is up to us to stop them acting on their humanity in ways we would never impose upon ourselves.

I know very well that Janice's family completely broke off all contact with her at the pastor's urging.

An action which has had far more devastating consequences than anything Janice has ever done.

Which brings up the question: What the heck is the point?