I read with great interest the guest editorial by Shalikashvili in the June 22 Register “Gays in the military”).

My issue is not with gays or with their service in the military — my issue is housing, bathing, bunking, sleeping, communal co-habitation. Let me explain.

We are foster parents and we take teen boys. They share a room. They have bunk beds. They share a bathroom and a shower (no, not at the same time; they take turns) and they share an area where they change clothes.

My teens are mostly tough, burly men, athletic and robust. Typically, we take teens from probation. Sometimes, they have a past that may include acts of aggression.

So here is what happened to us. In a bedroom of two teen boys, I got a new boy. He was just a boy to me. I did not see anything unique about him. Perhaps now looking back, I might say he was of a smaller build but tall. Lanky maybe. He was more delicate-looking. But none of this ran through my mind at the time.

Had it run through my mind, I would not have drawn any conclusions. After having more than 100 teen boys as foster children, I know they come in all shapes, colors and religious beliefs.

I brought him home, introduced him to the others and we had dinner. He had been a runaway from Texas. The boys were very interested in his tales of lands far away and strange foods and horses and cattle and ranches. He seemed to fit right in our home.

That night, after bedtime, the biggest fight broke out in the boys’ bedroom. I ran in and this boy was on the bottom of the pileup. The other boys were yelling and demanding him out of their bedroom, said he was gay and it was just like having a girl for a roommate.

Later, we learned that when the boys began stripping down in their room, the new boy did a catcall and whistled at one of them. Whew, that was it. When they learned he was gay and in their bedroom and them in their birthday suits, they came unglued.

For the safety of the new teen, we moved him to a separate bedroom and our home calmed down. Now I go back to the article, “Gays in the military.” I know we offer separate showers and bunks for women. Might we do the same for gay men and yet another for gay women? I am just curious how this would work.

(Gentry lives in Napa.)