Think I have overcome my moral dilema, Kashmir loves his new harness, never thought that would happen. Actually I never thought I would be the sort of woman who had a cat on a lead.....how eccentric,
There's pics of his first outing on the gallery.

I agree that this has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. When I was growing up in NJ, we ALWAYS had pets, but my grandmother was strongly against keeping them in the house all the time. Cats were put outside during the day, and the dog was let to run around in our huge fenced-in yard. If the cats came home at night, they were let in. If not, everyone went to bed and that was that. We actually never had any problems with any of them, so we were lucky.

Now-a-days, I think it's more practical (and safe) to keep our cats indoors, unless they are on a leash and harness. Leo LOVES to go outside, and will try to dart out the door if he catches you off guard. It usually takes one of us to keep him occupied, while the other turns off the house alarm. When I grab his leash and harness, he KNOWS he's going outside, and will start talking loudly and run over to me. He sits still while I put it on him, and he'll purr like crazy. He knows that he's not to go out without it, because when he does manage to dart out the door, he stops and crouches at the sound of our voice! He usually won't move any father once we yell his name, and go to grab him. But it's obvious he loves the fresh air and abundance of stimuli!

Oh, almost forgot to add... my husband and I currently live in a townhouse, and have started looking to buy a single-family house. One of the things we're looking for is to have an enclosed patio (like most homes in South Florida), so that the cats can have their "unsupervised" outdoor time without us having to worry.