Why This Married Heterosexual Relationship Therapist Supports the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage
I truly believe that the institution of marriage will not change for the worse if the legal right to be married is extended to lesbian, bisexual, gay, or transgender couples.
Everybody should have the right to make a legal and spiritual commitment to the person he or she loves and wants to spend the rest of his or her life with. To deny any two people who love each other the right to make this commitment because of their sexual orientation seems inhumane to me.
Supporters of California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, perpetually claim that legalizing same-sex marriage will have a negative affect on families and the institution of marriage. I find this both absurd and baffling.
For over two decades I’ve counseled couples and families and never once have I heard a client complain that his or her domestic strife is attributable to the same-sex couple down the street whose marriages are recognized in some states. Straight couples do a fine job of messing up and dishonoring their unions all on their own. From what I have seen in my practice, marital conflicts and failure are a result of infidelity, addiction, abuse, and neglect. It’s been estimated that approximately 60% of marriages will end in divorce. Twenty-somethings are so disillusioned by what they have seen of marriages that they are choosing not to get married at all. In addition, we promote reality shows in our society that portray marriage as a game show where getting a ring on your finger and getting to walk down the aisle are prizes. Before one points a finger at anyone else who seeks a loving commitment, I believe it is important to clean up one’s own backyard by focusing on one’s own marriage and family.
In my judgment this Proposition 8 battle is a distraction from addressing the real issues that destroy marriages. Instead of wasting millions upon millions of precious funds and energy on preventing same-sex couples from the legal right to marry, those resources could be used to provide marriage and family counseling to struggling couples, in order to strengthen and repair their marriages and create healthy, lasting, and more peaceful families.
This article originally appeared in Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tara-fields/same-sex-marriage-supreme-court_b_2958781.html
