Ten Reasons to Support Gay Marriage | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAYS AND LBIANS HAVE DIFFERENT REASONS TO GET MARRIED, STUDY SAYS
• GAY MARRIAGE
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
• WHY DO GAY MEN MARRY WOMEN: A COMPREHENSIVE EXPLANATN
• TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
• THE REASONS WHY GAY PEOPLE WANT TO GET MARRIED

GAYS AND LBIANS HAVE DIFFERENT REASONS TO GET MARRIED, STUDY SAYS

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. Like heterosexuals, many lbian, gay, and bisexual people want to form stable, long-lastg relatnships and many of them do.

In fact, rearchers have found that the majory of lbian, and gay, adults are mted relatnships and many upl have been together 10 or more years. Empiril rearch also shows that lbian and gay upl have levels of relatnship satisfactn siar to or higher than those of heterosexual upl. The fai and iends of lbian and gay upl who are nied marriage rights may also experience negative physil and mental health nsequenc siar to those experienced by their loved on.

GAY MARRIAGE

The vast majory of scientific studi that have directly pared lbian and gay parents wh heterosexual parents have nsistently shown that the same-sex upl are as f and pable parents as heterosexual upl, and that their children are jt as psychologilly healthy and well adjted. Same-sex marriage is now legal across the Uned Stat, but rearch on the reasons gays and lbians get married is sparse. ) The 1, 381 upl the study—672 lbian and 709 gay upl—were enterg their first unns and were between the ag of 20 and 64.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

Most gay upl entered their unn whout kids, and that number remaed close to zero after marriage; the thors nclud that “the ma functn of registered partnership for gays is rource poolg, ” they wre the paper. ” In other words, gay upl were more likely to get married to be and rourc; lbians tend to e marriage as a steppg stool towards creatg a fay, further emphasized by a spike lbians registerg for marriage 2002, the year when jot adoptn was ma legal. Havg kids is pecially expensive for gay mean, who need to fd an egg and a gtatnal rrier—a problem lbian upl don’t have.

What’s astonishg about the new rearch is that showed that lbian upl are often not as assortatively matched as heterosexual upl, or even gay men. Early Years: Same-Sex Marriage Bans In 1970, jt one year after the historic Stonewall Rts that galvanized the gay rights movement, law stunt Richard Baker and librarian Jam McConnell applied for a marriage license Gerald Nelson rejected their applitn bee they were a same-sex uple, and a trial urt upheld his cisn.

” This lg effectively blocked feral urts om lg on same-sex marriage for s, leavg the cisn solely the hands of stat, which alt blow after blow to those hopg to see gay marriage beg 1973, for stance, Maryland beme the first state to create a law that explicly f marriage as a unn between a man and woman, a belief held by many nservative relig groups. Though the gay rights movement saw some advancements the 1970s and 1980s—such as Harvey Milk beg the first openly gay man elected to public office the untry 1977—the fight for gay marriage ma ltle headway for many years.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

In 1989, the San Francis Board of Supervisors passed an ordance that allowed homosexual upl and unmarried heterosexual upl to register for domtic partnerships, which granted hospal visatn rights and other years later, the District of Columbia siarly passed a new law that allowed same-sex upl to register as domtic partners. C., 1993, the hight urt Hawaii led that a ban on same-sex marriage may vlate that state nstutn’s Equal Protectn Clse—the first time a state urt has ever ched toward makg gay marriage Hawaii Supreme Court sent the se—brought by a gay male uple and two lbian upl who were nied marriage licens 1990—back for further review to the lower First Circu Court, which 1991 origally dismissed the the state tried to prove that there was “pellg state tert” jtifyg the ban, the se would be tied up ligatn for the next three Defense of Marriage Act Opponents of gay marriage, however, did not s on their hnch. Congrs 1996 passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which Print Bill Clton signed to didn’t ban gay marriage outright but specified that only heterosexual upl uld be granted feral marriage benefs.

That is, even if a state ma gay marriage legal, same-sex upl still wouldn’t be able to file e tax jotly, sponsor spo for immigratn benefs or receive spoal Social Secury payments, among many other act was a huge setback for the marriage equaly movement, but transient good news arose three months later: Hawaii Judge Kev S.

Phg for Change: Civil Unns The next saw a whirlwd of activy on the gay marriage ont, begng wh the year 2000 when Vermont beme the first state to legalize civil unns, a legal stat that provis most of the state-level benefs of years later, Massachetts beme the first state to legalize gay marriage when the Massachetts Supreme Court led that same-sex upl had the right to marry Goodridge v. The state fally troduced the untry to gay marriage (m the feral benefs) when began issug same-sex marriage licens on May 17, that year, the U. 2004 was notable for upl many other stat as well, though for the oppose reason: Ten typilly nservative stat, along wh Oregon, enacted state-level bans on gay marriage.

WHY DO GAY MEN MARRY WOMEN: A COMPREHENSIVE EXPLANATN

Kansas and Texas were next 2005, and 2006 saw seven more stat passg Constutnal amendments agast gay towards the end of the , gay marriage beme legal var stat, cludg Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont (the first state to approve by legislative means) and New Hampshire. Domtic Partnerships Throughout the and the begng of the next, California equently ma headl for seawg on the gay marriage state was the first to pass a domtic partnership statute 1999, and legislators tried to pass a same-sex marriage bill 2005 and 2007. Perry legalized same-sex marriage early 2010s ntued the state-level battl over gay marriage that fed the precedg , wh at least one notable event.

TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

For the first time the untry’s history, voters (rather than judg or legislators) Mae, Maryland, and Washgton approved Constutnal amendments permtg same-sex marriage marriage also beme a feral issue 2010, Massachetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, found Sectn 3 of DOMA—the part of the 1996 law that fed marriage as a unn between one man and one woman—to be unnstutnal.

Wdsor, nservative Jtice Anthony Kennedy sid wh Jtic Ruth Bar Gsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan favor of same-sex marriage rights, ultimately makg gay marriage legal across the natn June this time, was still outlawed only 13 stat, and more than 20 other untri had already legalized gay marriage, startg wh the Netherlands December 2000.

Sometim a woman may have been a heterosexual relatnship for years and yet feel somethg is somehow "off;" and she may fd herself askg, "Is my hband gay? " Many women fd this qutn unthkable but acrdg to Bonnie Kaye,, an expert women married to gay men, is timated that 4 ln women have been, or are, married to gay men. Unfortunately, is timated that 50% of gay hbands hi their homosexualy om their wiv and don't reach this place of honty on their own.

THE REASONS WHY GAY PEOPLE WANT TO GET MARRIED

In many s, is the wife, who after spectg that somethg is wrong, mt nont the gay hband wh the evince, and only then n hontly be achieved. But if you're wonrg, "Is my man gay, " might be helpful to know that there are signs to look for, acrdg to Kaye. If turns out that a hband is, fact, gay, the fallout n be difficult to al wh, particularly for the straight partner.