Marriage Amendment/Same Sex Marriage

Psychologists Join the Gay Marriage Bandwagon
by Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.
August 4, 2004

Signaling total capitulation to the homosexual agenda, the American Psychological Association has endorsed same-sex marriage and now calls for the complete acceptance of homosexual partnerships and homosexual adoption. In a sweeping resolution, the professional organization for psychologists provided ample evidence that the group is now practicing politics rather than psychology.

Meeting in Honolulu, the APA Council of Representatives adopted the recommendation of its Working Group on Same-Sex Families and Relationships. The resolution adopted by the organization reiterates the APA's decision in 1975 to declare that "homosexuality is neither a form of mental illness nor a symptom of mental illness." Further, "taken together, the evidence clearly supports the position that the social stigma, prejudice, discrimination, and violence associated with not having a heterosexual orientation and the hostile and stressful social environments created thereby, adversely affect the psychological, physical, social, and economic well-being of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals."

Throwing aside millennia of moral wisdom, the APA resolution declared "that it is unfair and discriminatory to deny same-sex couples legal access to civil marriage and to all its attendant benefits, rights, and privileges."

This most recent atrocity from the APA provides further evidence of the fact that the profession of psychology, along with its allied fields, is now totally committed to values that are at odds with the convictions of mainstream Americans. More importantly, this resolution and its ideological underpinnings demonstrate that the modern psychotherapeutic worldview is directly at odds with the biblical worldview of Christianity.

The endorsement of homosexuality by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association is a sad tale of political capitulation and ideological warfare--all disguised as scientific progress. Until 1973, the therapeutic community considered homosexuality to be a mental disorder. Of course, this represented a huge challenge to the homosexual movement and its demands for the total normalization of homosexual behavior.

Accordingly, a cadre of determined activists set their sights on reversing the policy positions of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association. The psychiatrists fell first, voting in 1973 to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, its official list of mental illnesses. In other words, one day homosexuality was considered to be a mental disorder, the next day it was not. So much for medical science.

Ronald Bayer traces the development of this decision in Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis. Bayer recounts the successful effort by homosexual activists to bring political intimidation and ideological pressure upon the American Psychiatric Association, eventually coercing the group to reverse its stand on homosexuality. Clearly, this was not in response to any sudden scientific "discovery," but the simple result of power politics.

As Bayer comments: "The entire process, from the first confrontations organized by gay demonstrators at psychiatric conventions to the referendum demanded by orthodox psychiatrists, seemed to violate the most basic expectations about how questions of science should be resolved. Instead of being engaged in a sober consideration of data, psychiatrists were swept up in a political controversy." Furthermore, "The result was not a conclusion based on an approximation of the scientific truth as dictated by reason, but was instead an action demanded by the ideological temper of the times." The American Psychological Association quickly followed the psychiatrists' lead, voting in 1975 to reverse its stance on homosexuality.

Since then, the APA has become an organizing center for the homosexual movement. Its official website features numerous postings advocating gay rights, homosexual adoption, and same-sex marriage. Furthermore, the group ardently opposes all efforts to change sexual orientation through therapy and intervention. The APA is also an avid supporter of sex education in the public schools that indoctrinates children into the homosexual worldview.

The APA's recent resolution claims that denying civil marriage to homosexual couples is wrongful discrimination because it "denies such couples, their children, and other members of their families the legal, financial and social advantages of civil marriage." In a related action, the group also adopted a resolution opposing all discrimination against lesbian or gay parents, including rights to adoption, child custody, visitation, foster care and reproductive health services.

Psychologist James C. Dobson, President of Focus on the Family, condemned the APA's decision, arguing that the resolution "flies in the face of logic, science, and the historical experience of every culture on the face of the planet." He continued, "Let's be clear: What we're talking about here is intentionally creating hundreds of thousands of motherless and fatherless families, permanently depriving little boys of a father and little girls of a mother."

The APA was up-front with its intention. Armand R. Cerbone, a Chicago psychologist who chaired the APA's working group, explained: "What the resolution is asking is that psychologists recognize first of all that there is no difference between heterosexual couples and gay couples." No difference? On this issue, the APA speaks out of both sides of its mouth. Even as Dr. Cerbone claims that there is no difference between heterosexual couples and gay couples, others in the APA argue that homosexuals should be considered only within their particular life experience and the distinctiveness of their lifestyle.

As expected, the APA couched its arguments in terms of therapeutic language. The worldview represented by both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association was well described by Philip Reiff in his work, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. Issues of right and wrong, good and evil, and objective truth are replaced with notions of the autonomous self and personal "authenticity." Everything is reduced to a problem that can be resolved by therapy. This worldview is the perfect foundation for postmodern America. No one is a sinner, but everyone is sick.

Of course, given the complexities of human life, the therapeutic community has come up with a diagnosis for virtually every human ill, real or perceived. The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders includes a diagnosis for everyone--including those who don't think they need a diagnosis. We are all in need of therapy according to the therapeutic worldview, and those who do not believe themselves to be sick are just providing evidence of their syndrome of denial.

The framework of the therapeutic worldview goes hand in hand with other facets of modern and postmodern ideology. In a weird and perverse nod to collegiality, the APA quotes the American Anthropological Association in a 2004 statement declaring, "Anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide[s] no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution." Really? No support whatsoever for the view that civilization depends upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution? That statement is not evidence of responsible scientific thinking--it is merely one article from the creed of the Church of Postmodern Ideology.

Total acceptance of homosexuality, normalization of homosexual behaviors and lifestyles, and acceptance of homosexual relationships now stands as a non-negotiable doctrine of modern psychology and psychiatry. According to the ethical principles and guidelines adopted by the APA, it would be unethical for a therapist to suggest that homosexuality is wrong, sinful, or to be addressed as a problem.

This comprehensive acceptance of the homosexual agenda is now enshrined in official policies adopted, not only by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, but also by groups including the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Counseling Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, and the National Association of Social Workers, among others.

The APA's policy statement, "Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation," adopted in 1998, includes a prohibition against therapies that seek to change sexual orientation. Another document published by the group, "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principles, Educators, and School Personnel," condemns "reparative therapy" and "transformational ministry" intended to lead persons out of the homosexual lifestyle and into heterosexuality. The guidelines published in that document were also endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Education Association.

This represents a near total sweep for homosexual activists--and all at the expense of credible science and medicine. The fact that the National Education Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics affirmed the statement should send chills down the spine of every parent.

The groups are holding to these new-found convictions with a totalitarian vengeance. A report published last week in The Washington Times indicates that educators who formed an "Ex-Gay Educators Caucus" in the National Education Association were pounced upon by NEA members. One delegate, wearing the rainbow emblem of the NEA's Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus told one of the ex-gay members, "I'm really offended that you're even here." Another said, "You might as well set up a Ku Klux Klan booth right next to you."

Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network [GLSEN] was honored with the NEA's human rights "Creative Leadership" award at this year's annual convention. "Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation's public schools," Jennings has declared. "A line has been drawn. There is no 'other side' when you're talking about lesbian, gay, and bisexual students."

There you have it. There is no "other side," declares Mr. Jennings. There is no debate, no discourse, and no need for further discussion. The homosexual activists will not settle for anything less than total indoctrination, total capitulation, and the total rejection of the biblical worldview. The final insult is that they expect us to accept all of this as "science."