American Psychological Association supports full marriage equality

[azulai]

USA Today: Citing new research, psychology group supports gay marriage

The world's largest organization of psychologists took its strongest stand to date supporting full marriage equity, a move that observers say will have a far-reaching impact on the national debate.

The policymaking body of the American Psychological Association unanimously approved the resolution 157-0 on the eve of the group's annual convention, which opens here [Washington] today.

The group, with more than 154,000 members, has long supported full equal rights for gays, based on social science research on sexual orientation. Now the nation's psychologists — citing an increasing body of research about same-sex marriage, as well as increased discussion at the state and federal levels — took the support to a new level.

"Now as the country has really begun to have experience with gay marriage, our position is much clearer and more straightforward — that marriage equity is the policy that the country should be moving toward," says Clinton Anderson, director of APA's Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.

The resolution points to numerous recent studies, including findings that "many gay men and lesbians, like their heterosexual counterparts, desire to form stable, long-lasting, and committed intimate relationships and are successful in doing so."

It adds that "emerging evidence suggests that statewide campaigns to deny same-sex couples legal access to civil marriage are a significant source of stress to the lesbian, gay and bisexual residents of those states and may have negative effects on their psychological well-being."

Six states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont) and the District of Columbia currently allow same-sex marriage.

"Psychologists have been very important in helping to keep the discussion at a fact-based level and not let it steer off into stereotypes," says M.V. Lee Badgett, research director at the non-profit Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the non-profit National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia-Charlottesville, says his board is divided on the issue and hasn't taken a stance on same-sex marriage. He says the APA resolution will likely have a broad impact.

"I don't think it's very significant for the population at large, but I do think this move is significant for the ongoing public policy and legal battles in Washington and around the states," he says.

Clinical psychologist Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia University in New York, whose new research is cited in the resolution, says the courts tend to look at these kinds of policy statements because "they're really looking to see what social science research says about the influence on gay marriage and marriage bans on a whole host of outcomes."

Badgett's research of gay marriage across cultures is also cited in the resolution. She says the Netherlands was the first to allow gay couples to marry, and it showed "very little change in the overall society, but it was very important to gay couples themselves."

The last APA resolution on sexual orientation and marriage was approved in 2004. The resolution notes that since that time, APA has worked on 11 amicus briefs filed in same-sex marriage cases since 2004.

[DarkDaisuke]

I was so happy to hear this primarily because its the leading or at least as far as I know psychological association in America and just adds more support to legalize marriage equality.

[Merging]

It will be a glorious day when same sex marriage is legal everywhere in the USA

[mrk2010]

I really hope same sex marriage happens in all states of the U.S, I feel lucky being from the UK as there is no issue regarding it. But I hope it goes through. mile:

[Inchante]

I really hope same sex marriage happens in all states of the U.S, I feel lucky being from the UK as there is no issue regarding it. But I hope it goes through. mile:

Yeah, why isn't anything being done for Gay Marriage in the U.K.? It seems like you would have it by now. It is like the U.K. got civil partnerships, but refused to go any further. I'm just wondering, curiosity. Is it just not a priority there?

[Gabbyboy]

i'm happy for you guys.. i'm stuck in this ancient country that still discriminate and look down on homosexuality and sex marriage... i can't wait to get outta here

[Cardiganwearer]

Yeah, why isn't anything being done for Gay Marriage in the U.K.? It seems like you would have it by now. It is like the U.K. got civil partnerships, but refused to go any further. I'm just wondering, curiosity. Is it just not a priority there?

Civil partnership in the Uk offers everything that a civil marriage does. Civil partners are entitled to the same property rights, the same exemptions on inheritance tax, the same social security and pension benefits as married couples. They also have the same ability to get parental responsibility for a partner's children as well as reasonable maintenance, tenancy rights, insurance and next-of-kin rights in hospital and with doctors. There is a process similar to divorce for dissolving a civil partnership.

There is and probably always will be resistance from churches to actually call it marriage or permit the ceremony to be performed in churches. Their view often centres on the notion that marriage is for the production and nurturing of children. Gay people do the latter already and the church is happy to marry people incapable of the former (there is no ban, or even question, on church marriages for people who are infertile).

There is still campaigning to get it called marriage and to permit churches to perform the ceremony. The fundies like to make this look like a campaign to force churches to perform gay weddings and they love to squeal about how oppressed they are. I'm inclined to say leave it for a while, there's little to be gained and it gives the religious nuts something to publicise their death cult with.

[marshlander]

... I feel lucky being from the UK as there is no issue regarding it...

That's not strictly true. While we may end up having pretty much all of the rights and responsibilities of those eligable to enter marriage, separate rules still divide us. As children we grow up mostly having an expectation that one day we shall be married and then we find we can't "marry" the one we love, but have to accept something called a "civil partnership" instead.

I could live with this quite happily were ALL conjoinings performed in a registry office known as "civil partnerships". Churches would then be welcome to keep their "marriages" However, I can hear the hullaballoo were the straights forced to redesignate their civil marriages, "civil partnerships".

Whatever progress we've made (and there has been a lot in the UK in the past few years) separate will never mean equal. I'm exotic enough and I don't need or want the law to confirm it.

However, to the OP, that is good news and any support is going to be welcome.