Why Not Allow Gay Marriage? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAY MARRIAGE BY STATE [UPDATED JULY 2023]
• WHY NOT ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE?
• STAT ACROSS U.S. STILL CLG TO OUTDATED GAY MARRIAGE BANS
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
• MANY STAT STILL PROHIB GAY ADOPTN
• WHICH STAT ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE?
• GAY MARRIAGE
• TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

GAY MARRIAGE BY STATE [UPDATED JULY 2023]

In others – most recently Alabama – ’s been state or feral judg forcg the toehold long sought by gay rights advot and bterly ntted by those who argue marriage is an stutn rerved solely for one man and one woman.

Acrdg to a report by the Amerin Amy of Pediatrics, "A growg body of scientific lerature monstrat that children who grow up wh 1 or 2 gay and/or lbian parents fare as well emotnal, gnive, social, and sexual functng as do children whose parents are heterosexual. Acrdg to the prs release for the issue, "Amendments that rtrict civil marriage rights of same-sex upl — such as Proposn 8 that recently passed California — have led to higher levels of strs and anxiety among lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr adults, as well as among their fai of orig, acrdg to several new studi to be published by the Amerin Psychologil Associatn.

Sharon Sl Rostosky, at the Universy of Kentucky, "The rults of this study monstrate that livg a state that has jt passed a marriage amendment is associated wh higher levels of psychologil strs for lbian, gay and bisexual cizens, " Rostosky said. Adam Ebb, the first openly gay lawmaker the state’s General Assembly, troduced the bill, which was one of four pro-LGBTQ measur passed the state this month. ”Five years after the Supreme Court had s say on the issue, same-sex marriage remas a polilly ntent issue, and LGBTQ advot ntue to battle urtrooms and stateho to ensure gay upl n exercise their right to marry.

WHY NOT ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE?

” The “mi-DOMAs, ” he noted, banned gay marriage fay s and state law, not the 1998, Hawaii beme the first state to pass a nstutnal amendment specifilly targetg same-sex marriage.

In some s, there is a lack of polil willgns to remove them, while others, the labor-tensive removal procs mak them a low Virgia, for example, while the two statutory laws banng same-sex marriage have been repealed, the state’s 2006 nstutnal amendment prohibg gay unns remas for the time beg. Circu Court of Appeals found that, although Davis was immune om beg sued as a unty official, she uld be sued her dividual pacy for refg to ply wh the early 2016, Roy Moore, then the chief jtice of the Alabama Supreme Court, prohibed probate judg the state om issug marriage licens to gay upl.

"We believe judg reta their right to relig liberty when they take the bench, " Paxton’s spokperson, Marc Rylanr, said a statement at the matrimonySce the legalizatn of same-sex marriage ferally, hundreds of state bills have been troduced that poke hol gay marriage var ways. And while Tmp claimed to be a “real iend” to lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer people durg the 2016 mpaign, Kadi said his admistratn is “no ally to the LGBTQ muny. US public opn had shifted signifintly over the years, om 27% approval of gay marriage 1996 to 55% 2015, the year beme legal throughout the Uned Stat, to 61% 2019.

STAT ACROSS U.S. STILL CLG TO OUTDATED GAY MARRIAGE BANS

Proponents of legal gay marriage ntend that gay marriage bans are discrimatory and unnstutnal, and that same-sex upl should have accs to all the benefs enjoyed by different-sex upl.

On July 25, 2014 Miami-Da County Circu Court Judge Sarah Zabel led Florida’s gay marriage ban unnstutnal and stated that the ban “serv only to hurt, to discrimate, to prive same-sex upl and their fai of equal digny, to label and treat them as send-class cizens, and to em them unworthy of participatn one of the fundamental stutns of our society. The Amerin Psychologil Associatn, Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, and others nclud that legal gay marriage giv upl “accs to the social support that already facilat and strengthens heterosexual marriag, wh all of the psychologil and physil health benefs associated wh that support.

A 2010 analysis found that after their stat had banned gay marriage, gay, lbian and bisexual people suffered a 37% crease mood disorrs, a 42% crease alhol-e disorrs, and a 248% crease generalized anxiety disorrs.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

In July 2012 New York Cy Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that gay marriage had ntributed $259 ln to the cy’s enomy jt a year sce the practice beme legal there July 2011. In 2012, the Williams Instute at the Universy of California at Los Angel (UCLA) found that the first five years after Massachetts legalized gay marriage 2004, same-sex weddg expendur (such as venue rental, weddg k, etc. 2016 printial ndidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fra stated that civil unns are aquate as an equivalent to marriage: “Benefs are beg btowed to gay upl [ civil unns]… I believe we need to rpect those who believe that the word marriage has a spirual foundatn… Why n’t we rpect and tolerate that while at the same time sayg ernment nnot btow benefs unequally.

Court papers filed July 2014 by attorneys fendg Arizona’s gay marriage ban stated that “the State regulat marriage for the primary purpose of channelg potentially procreative sexual relatnships to endurg unns for the sake of jog children to both their mother and their father… Same-sex upl n never provi a child wh both her blogil mother and her blogil father. Contrary to the pro gay marriage argument that some different-sex upl nnot have children or don’t want them, even those s there is still the potential to produce children. Lee Badgett, PhD, Director of the Center for Public Policy and Admistratn at the Universy of Massachetts at Amherst, stated that for many gay activists “marriage means adoptg heterosexual forms of fay and givg up distctively gay fay forms and perhaps even gay and lbian culture.

MANY STAT STILL PROHIB GAY ADOPTN

Pla Ettelbrick, JD, Profsor of Law and Women’s Studi, wrote 1989, “Marriage ns ntrary to two of the primary goals of the lbian and gay movement: the affirmatn of gay inty and culture and the validatn of many forms of relatnships. LGBT activist llective Agast Equaly stated, “Gay marriage ap hetero privilege… [and] creas enomic equaly by perpetuatg a system which ems married begs more worthy of the basics like health re and enomic rights. Queer activist Anrs Zanichkowsky stated June 2013 that the then mpaign for gay marriage “tentnally and malicly eras and exclus so many queer people and cultur, particularly trans and genr non-nformg people, poor queer people, and queer people non-tradnal fai… marriage thks non-married people are viant and not tly servg of civil rights.

In Islamic tradn, several hadhs (passag attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) nmn gay and lbian relatnships, cludg the saygs “When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shak, ” and “Sihaq [lbian sex] of women is za [illegimate sexual terurse]. Matt Barber, Associate Dean for Onle Programs at Liberty Universy School of Law, stated, “Every dividual engaged the homosexual liftyle, who has adopted a homosexual inty, they know, tuively, that what they’re dog is immoral, unnatural, and self-stctive, yet they thirst for that affirmatn. A 2003 set of guil signed by Pope John Pl II stated: “There are absolutely no grounds for nsirg homosexual unns to be any way siar or even remotely analogo to God’s plan for marriage and fay… Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go agast the natural moral law.

On May 17, 2004, the first legal gay marriage the Uned Stat was performed Cambridge, MA between Tanya McCloskey, a massage therapist, and Marcia Kadish, an employment manager at an engeerg firm.

WHICH STAT ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE?

For stance, 45% of adults the Silent Generatn (those born between 1928 and 1945) favor allowg gays and lbians to wed, pared wh 74% of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996).

4As wh the general public, Amerins who intify as lbian, gay, bisexual or transgenr (LGBT) are most likely to ce love as a very important reason for gettg married. Sce then, several other European untri – cludg England and Wal, France, Ireland, all of Sndavia, Spa and, most recently, Atria, Germany and Malta – have legalized gay marriage.

GAY MARRIAGE

Florida’s 1977 ban on gay adoptn had only recently been overturned when the Nurs began lookg to take foster children 2011 wh the hope of ultimately adoptg them. While same-sex upl have long been able to adopt om private, gay-iendly adoptn agenci, adoptg children om the foster re system has proved more difficult some stat.

“Marriage don’t create this pletely certa playg field, ” said Ellen Kahn, director of the children, youth and fai program at the Human Rights Campaign, which advot for gay rights. And some stat have taken up legislatn that would allow taxpayer-fund ntractors that oversee state adoptns to refe to let gay or lbian dividuals adopt children if nflicts wh the anizatn’s relig beliefs. In Alabama, married gay upl will be allowed to adopt a foster child, but they’ll have to wa longer than most—the state requir married upl terted adoptg to have been married for a year before begng the adoptn procs.

Mississippi is the only state that has a law that specifilly bars gay upl om adoptg foster children, and Julia Bryan, spokwoman for the state Department of Human Servic, said the law will be followed unls the legislature mak any chang when renven January. Gay upl the state will have to ntue to have one member of the uple formally adopt the child, she said, and then the other member has to e back later to do a send parent adoptn—a siar procs to a step parent adoptg a stepchild. Nebraska policy prevented unmarried upl, gay or straight, om fosterg or adoptg state wards until 2012, when the state started allowg gay upl to bee foster parents, ultimately placg foster children wh 15 same-sex upl, acrdg to the Omaha World Herald.

TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

But opponents of the Michigan law say s language is too broad, givg relig anizatns leeway to discrimate agast not jt gay upl, but sgle people, terracial upl, people of other fahs or anybody who they say nflicts wh their fah.

Sce the first same-sex marriag took place the Netherlands 2001, more than 30 other jurisdictns have enacted laws allowg gays and lbians to marry, mostly Europe and the Ameris. Netherlands2001EuropeFirst untry to legalize same-sex marriage after Parliament passed the law December Zealand 2013Asia-PacificFirst untry the Asia-Pacific regn to allow gays and lbians to 2009EuropeThe law replaced a 1993 statute permtg civil unns. Slovenia 2022EuropeFirst untry formerly munist Eastern Europe to legalize same-sex Ai 2006Sub-Saharan AiOnly Ain untry where same-sex marriage is legal; several untri on the ntent have passed laws that ban homosexualy recent 2005EuropeBeme the third untry globally to legalize same-sex marriage after a vote s closely divid 2009EuropeGay and lbian upl Swen prevly had been allowed to register for civil unns sce 1995.