American Psychiatric Association Supports Legalizing Gay Marriage

The American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting began Sunday in Atlanta, and the group decided to start things off with a bang by taking a voice vote on a resolution to urge the legal recognition of gay marriage. Citing that gay marriage results in the "positive influence of a stable, adult partnership on the health of all family members," the association approved the resolution. According to Margery Sved, a North Carolina psychiatrist and a member of the association’s committee on gay and lesbian issues, the resolution states that "gay men and lesbians are full human beings who should be afforded the same human and civil rights." The word "marriage," as used in the document, applies only to same-sex civil marriages, not religious marriages, since the American Psychiatric Association takes no position on any religion’s views of marriage. If the association’s board of trustees approve the resolution at their meeting in July, the assembly will be the first major medical group in the United States to take a definitive stance on the issue.

The American Psychological Association proposed a similar measure last year at their annual convention, more than thirty years after homosexuality was removed from the APA’s list of mental disorders. Their endorsement, which supported gay marriage, gay foster parenting, and gay adoptions, was based on recommendations from the APA’s Working Group on Same-Sex Families and Relationships. That group consists of gay and lesbian clinicians who have been prominent in gay causes. Even though the APA considers itself to be a scientific organization, their endorsement last year was prompted by urgings from a group that clearly cannot be objective about the issue. Joseph Nicolosi, President of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), expressed concern over the American Psychological Association's endorsement last year. "They've let political activists take over the APA, and they are giving us their own, values-laden 'take' on the issues." Nicolosi added that because the APA has started out "with the foundational belief that there's no real difference between the genders, then mothers and fathers start to look interchangeable. With such a worldview, gay and straight relationships look the same; then gay marriage starts to look as if it were no different from the natural, biological family."

Many members of NARTH and other research organizations are critical of the stances taken by the two associations. Although many clinical research studies have shown that gays and lesbians are less psychologically healthy than heterosexuals, the mental health associations simply dismiss the research, saying instead that the psychological problems of homosexuals are due to society’s homophobia. Critics of the resolutions supporting gay marriage say that the APA and the American Psychiatric Association should openly define what they mean by "healthy sexuality," "healthy development," and "healthy families," and explain how their statements have anything to do with mental health. The irony of the issue is that the mental health associations have the unfair advantage of referring to themselves as objective "scientific" organizations, yet their resolutions are based on recommendations from association members with clearly defined philosophical and political agendas that have nothing to do with science. So, to many people, such so-called "clinically objective" endorsements seem, well, pretty insane.