AAMFT on Homosexual Marriage

The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy has made a statement on Homosexual Marriage. Here is a quote from their statement:

Research indicates that gay men and lesbian women who have come to terms with their homosexuality, and who function effectively sexually and socially, suffer no more emotional or mental distress than comparable heterosexual men and women. Further, coupled homosexuals and heterosexuals do not differ in terms of psychological adjustment, love for their partners, relationship satisfaction, or on those variables that improve or detract from relationship satisfaction or stability. Personal and relational adjustment and satisfaction of gay men and lesbians is positively related to public disclosure of sexual orientation, perceived social support, and lack of discrimination experiences. Although specific research on the effects of prohibitions on legally sanctioned same sex unions for gays or lesbians has yet to be conducted, the absence of opportunity for most lesbians and gays to look forward to marriage or legally sanctioned same sex unions, and to have their love relationships treated on an equal social and legal basis, likely creates a sense of stigma known to be deleterious to all people.
Research studies have found few if any differences between gay men, lesbians, and heterosexuals in their parenting styles, skills, and experiences. Further, there is conclusive evidence that children raised by gay men and lesbians do not experience unfavorable outcomes compared with children raised by heterosexual parents. Studies have demonstrated that children raised in lesbian families are no different from other children in terms of short term and long term emotional well being, occurrence of psychiatric illness, gender role behavior, gender identity, intelligence, and pro-social behavior. The preponderance of the data on gay and lesbian parenting, however, comes from lesbian versus gay male families. In addition, there are a number of design and sampling limitations in the available research on gay male and lesbian parenting. Nonetheless, the uniformity of the results of these studies, showing few if any differences between heterosexual and homosexual families and outcomes for children in them, suggests that the effects of such limitations is probably small.

For more information go to:
http://www.aamft.org/about/marriage_politics_statement.asp