It worked for Will and Grace

If a homosexual wants to room with someone of the opposite gender on campus, he or she should be allowed to.

UB's Residence Halls and Apartments is ignoring a big issue by prohibiting male and female students from sharing a dorm or apartment.

With the exception of married or domestically partnered couples, chicks and dudes must sleep separated by at least one wall. Officially, that is.

When you register with RH&A dorms or apartments, all that matters is they have on record as not rooming with someone of the opposite gender. The alternative (and I'm not talking about the hundreds of singles found in North campus's dorms), according to the helpful RH&A secretary staff, would be "uncomfortable."

The reason? A male-female couple has the potential to date and break up and fight.

I can't imagine that anyone is blind to the idea that students have sex with each other during their stay in college. But whether or not your registered room and your rockin' bed are found in the same building doesn't matter to RH&A, as long as no one can accuse them of promoting inappropriate living styles.

What, then, is there to say about two gay people who end up being roomies? Or four, like my freshman year? Though some of my best college memories so far came from the three friends I ended up living with that semester, some people might say the living situation was inappropriate.

After all, more than one student living together with someone they could be sexually attracted to is part of the problem that RH&A has with a male and a female rooming together.

Even if two students of the opposite gender who can claim opposing sexual interests (a gay male and a lesbian, if you need it spelled out) apply together, they'll be refused because of the inappropriate situations that could arise from a male and female dorming together.

For an organization that offers Safe Zone training and advocates awareness of sexual orientation, I think it's a little conservative for Residence Halls and Apartments to disallow a room with three X chromosomes and one Y.

If two gay guys can shack up, a straight couple should be allowed to do the same. The problems that could arise are numerous: a relationship could form and dissolve during the course of a semester, creating a bad living situation for a guy and his ex girlfriend.

But these problems are endemic to the gay living situation too. Even so. you shouldn't expect to see "sexual orientation" listed under your roomie preferences sheet anytime soon.

Let's hope, anyway, that profiling for sexual orientation isn't the answer.

Even though it would be easier for a lot of male and female homosexuals to live with someone of the opposite gender and avoid those problems altogether, RH&A's thought process apparently went something like, "Co-ed dorming! Parents would eat us alive. Forget the gays, let's just keep our young men and women apart."

Well, maybe not. According to Tom Tiberi, senior associate director for University apartments, the issue hasn't been brought to his attention yet by students.

Little to no requests for co-ed rooming have come his way, and certainly no self-proclaimed homosexuals.

Maybe, then, it's time the LGBTA and other students got together and started pushing for this issue.

If straight couples can't room together because of the risks involved, gay ones shouldn't be allowed to either. That means profiling, which clearly is a threat to privacy.

A better plan, then, is for students to push for co-ed dorming exceptions, and for homosexuals to bring the issue to Residence Halls and Aparments if they start to have a problem with each other. Help is available, and according to Tiberi, RH&A is willing to lend an ear.

You'll be heard. Mention the idea to your RA, your CA or the LGBTA. This is 2005, and co-ed campus living is a modern issue that shouldn't be ignored.