APA: Let the (Gay and Lesbian) People Wed

Saying that gays and lesbians have as much of a need and desire to form stable family units as heterosexuals, the American Psychological Association has adopted a resolution to support marriage equality, USA Today reported on Aug. 4.

Moreover, the body -- the largest professional organization of psychologists in the country -- noted that evidence points to psychological harm when gays and lesbians are subjected to the vitriolic, anti-GLBT campaigns that accompany efforts to write discriminatory language into state constitutions.

Such anti-gay amendments have been adopted by 31 states. Minnesota voters will weigh in on the issue next year, and GLBT equality advocates hope that the rapidly changing social climate will bring about a historic rejection of the anti-gay measure at the ballot box.

The group adopted the resolution just before the Aug. 4 start of this year's annual conference in Washington, D.C. The vote was unanimous.

"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," the APA's Clinton Anderson told the media. Anderson directs the group's Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns, USA Today noted.

The APA struck homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973, and has been a proponent of treating gays as people who do not suffer from any pathological condition, and therefore deserve equal rights and protections before the law. But the new resolution marks a high water point in the group's support of full legal and social parity for gays and their families.

The text of the resolution refers to the fact 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," USA Today reported. The statement is backed by research, as is the assertion that GLBTs are at risk from psychological harm by being targets in the culture wars.

"[E]merging 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," the resolution adds.

Research has shown that GLBTs are more prone to substance abuse, depression, and anxiety. Those trends are especially acute in places and at times when populations of sexual minorities find themselves under legal or social attack, such as when gays are demonized and made the subject of ballot initiatives or other political actions. Other forms of stigma, along with social, religious, and familial rejection are thought to contribute to higher rates of depression and anxiety among gays. That, in turn, is suspected of accounting for higher rates of substance abuse, which can then translate into behavior that elevates risk for contracting STIs, including HIV.

Though anti-religious organizations and GLBT equality opponents claim that sexual orientation is a matter of choice and gays could simply "convert" to heterosexuality if they wanted to, mental health professionals warn that so-called "reparative therapy" does little good and puts gays at increased risk of harm. Experts warn that when "reparative therapy" fails to "cure" gays of their innate and naturally occurring sexual attraction toward others of the same gender, gay recipients of the treatment can suffer intense shame and confusion.

Even as clerics, politicians, and pundits have made extraordinary, and often inflammatory, claims about whom gays are and what they want, mental health professionals have sought to steer the debate toward rational discourse that reflects reality, said a Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy researcher.

"Psychologists have been very important in helping to keep the discussion at a fact-based level and not let it steer off into stereotypes," the Institute's research director, M.V. Lee Badgett, told USA Today.

The resolution will probably carry significant weight as the debate over gays and their families continues, the article said. Already, conservative politicians angling for the GOP nomination in next year's election have said that they would favor incorporating anti-gay language into the United States Constitution. If an anti-marriage equality amendment limiting marriage rights to heterosexual couples were to be ratified, the six states where gay and lesbian families may currently access the rights, protections, and obligations of marriage would find their laws overridden, and overnight tens of thousands of married couples could find themselves reduced to the status of legal strangers.

But the culture is far ahead of the political curve. A recent survey showed for the first time that a slender majority of Americans favor marriage equality for gay and lesbian families. Moreover, three-quarters of the American public favored repealing the law that prevented gay and lesbian patriots from serving openly in uniform well before Congress passed a repeal law last year. The law's repeal was certified by the president, the defense secretary, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month; repeal will be final next month.

Meantime, the focus has shifted to federal laws regarding same-sex families. The 1996 anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) denies same-sex couples and their families any federal recognition, with the result that legally married couples can instantly lose their rights by crossing a state line. Moreover, gay and lesbian families carry a greater tax burden than heterosexual families do.

DOMA now faces at least ten challenges in federal court, and parts of the law have twice been found unconstitutional. The Obama Administration no longer defends DOMA in federal court because of questions regarding the law's constitutionality. The USA Today article noted that the APA's resolution could play a role in how courts view issues relevant to gay and lesbian families.

The article also noted that marriage equality has little impact overall on societies where it is legal. But for the gay and lesbian citizens of those nations, the chance to live as legal and social equals -- not only as individuals, but as families -- has made a tremendous difference.