To the editor:

In a story summarizing the positions of City Commission candidates concerning a “domestic registry,” a Journal-World reporter wrote that the registry would give gay couples no “new legal rights.” It could simply be used by companies who want to offer health insurance to domestic partners but need a way to “verify the legitimacy of a partnership.”

Several candidates said they want to wait for a legal opinion about this.

I have a human opinion.

If these candidates were, themselves, gay and in a relationship where the difference between being added to a partner’s plan or purchasing insurance separately amounted to hundreds of dollars a month – for my wife and I, that is the case – they would not want to wait for a “legal opinion.”

Waiting for such an opinion is a chilly luxury of those for whom the health insurance meter isn’t running.

Roger Martin, Lawrence