Q: I am a married, straight male teacher. On a business trip, I was required to room with another teacher, a gay man, or pay for my own room. The sole female teacher on the trip was given a private room. When I mentioned my discomfort, my boss said it was a nonissue and was not like asking straight men and women to share a room. Is it right to require straight and gay men to room together?
– Anonymous, Miami
A: It is. As it is right to have straight and gay ballplayers shower together. To arrange things otherwise is to impose a distasteful system of segregation. And while your colleague (or teammate) must treat you with courtesy and respect, you’ve offered no reason to think he would do less.
Your boss’ distinction between gay/straight and male/female roommates is defensible on empirical grounds. We men have long experience of peaceful coexistence with our naked co-genderists, gay and straight – in the dorms, in the barracks, at summer camp. We have less such experience across the gender line with casual acquaintances in intimate settings. What’s more, straight men face little threat from gay men (if anything, it has been the other way around). But sadly, women have enough of a history of sexual harassment and assault at the hands of men that any woman might reasonably object to being forced to share a hotel room with a male co-worker.
I could be your ally if you took the more radical stance that an employer may not compel any adult to share a bedroom, a sanctum no boss should breach.
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Q: Four years ago my brother asked my husband and me for help buying a home. We agreed to buy a house and sell it to him and his wife eventually. We made the down payment and continue to pay the insurance and taxes; they pay the mortgage. The house has increased in value by an astounding $320,000; my brother wants to sell it and keep the profit. My husband decided instead to lend my brother $80,000 for a down payment on a new house, since my brother took no risk and made no attempt to repay us. Is this OK?
– K.O., San Francisco
A: You and your husband own a house that you generously permit your brother and his wife to live in. Your house, your profit. Why should your brother get a dime?
You must clarify your legal position, but as an ethical matter (assuming your agreement didn’t suggest otherwise), his having never repaid any money you put into the house makes your brother a tenant, not a home-owner who can profit from a sale. Had housing prices dropped, I doubt he would have made up your loss.
There is a more openhanded solution that you may prefer, if only to preserve family harmony. Divide the profits in proportion to what you each have put into the house – initial payment, insurance, taxes, mortgage payments, everything. That should give your brother pretty much what your husband proposed.
Of course, whatever you decide, don’t expect much fun at your next holiday dinner. There is nothing like unexpected good fortune to make a family miserable.
Write to Universal Press Syndicate, 4250 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or e-mail ethicist@nytimes.com.
