dpkg --force-architecture to install 32-bit software on 64-bit system - bad idea?

["Patrick Wiseman" <pwiseman@gmail.com>]

And, if so, how bad?  I have installed Kompozer (the successor to
Nvu), but the Debian package is a 32-bit package.  I forced it to
install anyway, and it seems to run just fine, although launching it
caused a bunch of  the following :Gtk-WARNING **:
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-uim.so: wrong ELF class:
ELFCLASS64.

Is there an Approved Way of installing 32-bit packages when no 64-bit
package is available?  (Kompozer is not in the official Debian
repository, for some reason.)

Patrick