Psychologists to
endorse gay marriage
By Marilyn Elias, USA
TODAY from the Web, May 18, 2005
HONOLULU — Gay couples should
be able to marry in civil ceremonies and, if they are parents, they deserve all
the legal rights of straight parents, says a policy the American Psychological
Association adopted Wednesday at its meeting here.
"We're going out on a limb," says Diane Halpern, president of APA, the nation's
largest group of psychologists. "But we're doing what we should be doing."
The group already has a policy opposing discrimination against gays, and many
members are concerned about political actions to stop gay marriages, she says.
Keeping gays from marrying "puts a particular stress on them just because of
their sexual orientation. It's a health issue and a mental health issue,"
Halpern says.
President Bush favors a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex
marriage but would leave it up to states to decide whether to allow civil
unions, which give couples many of marriage's legal protections. The
federal amendment died in the Senate, but state amendments to ban same-sex
marriages are on the ballot in seven states. Activists in four more states
have gathered enough signatures for a vote, but the signatures are being
verified.
There's no evidence that kids raised by gays have poorer mental health than
those with straight parents, Halpern says. The research is limited but
growing and improving in quality, says University of Virginia psychologist
Charlotte Patterson.
David Blankenhorn, head of the pro-traditional marriage Institute for American
Values, says there is strong evidence that kids do best when raised by married,
biological parents. Supporting gay marriage encourages a "marriage-lite"
trend that pretends unions are a private matter, he says. "The whole
social fabric depends on stable marriages; how the next generation is raised
depends on it."
But preventing gay parents from marrying hurts their kids, as does denying them
equal rights to insurance and Social Security benefits, says Aimee Gelnaw,
executive director of the Family Pride Coalition, an advocacy group for gay
families. "Separate is not equal," Gelnaw says.
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