h*****l 发帖数: 161 | 1 CNN) -- The American Psychological Association is calling on state and
federal officials to stop anti-gay legal measures and to legalize same-sex
marriage.
The scientific and professional organization's guiding body voted
unanimously at its annual meeting this week in Washington to declare its
support for "full marriage equality for same-sex couples."
The resolution "clarifies the Association's support for same-sex marriage"
in light of new research, the group said. A similar resolution in 2004
opposed discrimination against same-sex relationships, but refrained from a
more formal policy recommendation.
Dr. Clinton Anderson, APA associate executive director, said that the timing
of the resolution is an indirect result of several states' legalization of
marriage.
"We knew that marriage benefits heterosexual people in very significant ways
, but we didn't know if that would be true for same-sex couples," said
Anderson, who is also director of the APA's Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Concerns.
Now that six U.S. states permit same-sex marriage, researchers have been
able to conduct studies with those couples.
The research, Anderson said, indicates that marriage "does confer the same
sense of security, support, and validation" to same-sex couples as to
heterosexual ones.
The resolution also points to evidence that ongoing political debate about
marriage creates stress for gay men and lesbians and perpetuates stigmas and
prejudice about their communities. This stress can make people physically
and psychologically sick, the APA says, calling the link between stress and
illness "well established."
Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the board of the National Organization for
Marriage, takes issue with the assertion that legalizing same-sex marriage
would improve community acceptance of homosexuality.
"There is no evidence that gay teens are better off in Massachusetts, a
state that has gay marriage, than they are in Wisconsin, a state which has
passed a marriage amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman," she
said in an e-mail response to CNN.
Gallagher continued, "The release of this statement is unfortunately going
to undermine confidence in APA statements generally, I would predict."
Both the National Organization for Marriage and the APA are skeptical of one
solution to the gay-marriage debate: civil unions. Rhode Island NOM
executive director Chris Plante is quoted in a press release on the NOM
website calling the move "nothing more than a Trojan Horse that will usher
in same-sex marriage sooner rather than later." Elsewhere on its website,
NOM calls for dealing with legal and economic benefits separately from any
discussion of marriage or unions.
The APA also feels that civil unions miss the mark.
"Anything other than marriage is, in essence, a stigmatization of same-sex
couples. Stigma does have negative impacts on people," Anderson said.
"That's the analysis that we've come to and why we've decided to support
full marriage equality -- because domestic partnership or civil union will
still convey the message that same-sex couples are not as good." | h*****l 发帖数: 161 | 2 link
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/04/psychologists.gay.marriage/ind
You can see the following comment on English website--How different from
Chinese BBS. Chinese are too socially conservative, way lagged behind White,
even many North America "well-educated" ppl.
But gay-marriage will be legalized,that is the trend. |
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