APA Resolves to Support Marriage Equality

On the eve of its annual convention, the policymaking body of the American Psychological Association has voted unanimously, 157-0, to approve a resolution supporting full marriage rights for same-sex couples. They additionally noted that anti-marriage campaigns have a negative psychological effect on members of the LGB community.

"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."

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