Marriage Equality Rhode Island

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Behavioral Health Professionals Coalition

We are behavioral health professionals from a number of disciplines who come together to urge the Rhode Island Legislature to adopt marriage equality in Rhode Island.

Get Involved

Legislators were positively influenced in other states such as Iowa by the views of mental health providers in support of same-sex marriage, so your involvement or even just your signature can really make a difference.

How you can make a difference as a Behavioral Health Professional:

• Please read the Declaration of Support of Marriage Equality in the State of Rhode Island. If you support the statement, please send an email to our Behavioral Health Professional Coalition Chair, Marge Paccione, stating “Yes” in the subject line and listing your full name and credentials (MSW, Ph.D. student, etc.) in the body of the email.
• Please promote this webpage and the Declaration to any and all mental health providers you know.
• Write a brief testimonial about why this issue is important to you, based upon your professional experience and interests.  This statement would be included in a booklet that will be made available to legislators in their preparation for any future hearings on the matter.  (If you have testified previously in legislative hearings and still have a copy, please consider sending that along as your testimony.) And if you send in a testimonial, please consider sending along a photo; we are looking into creating a cover page on the booklet with a collage of photos to give the booklet a more personal touch—this has been compelling to legislators in the past.

Thank you for anything you are willing to do.
Marge Paccione, Ph.D. (Email Marge)

Policy statements related to Marriage Equality

The following are web links to the behavioral health position statements in support of marriage equality and related professional organization statements summarizing research in areas related to understanding sexual orientation, the quality of same-sex relationships, the effects of discrimination for lesbian and gay individuals, the parenting capacities of gay and lesbian individuals, and comparisons of children of same-sex parents with those of opposite-sex parents. The following four organizations have issued policy statements in support of same-sex marriage and cumulatively these organizations claim membership to over 340,000 behavioral health professionals worldwide.

The American Psychological Association (the largest association of psychologists worldwide with over 150,000 members):
http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/policy/marriage.pdf
http://www.apa.org/topics/sorientation.html

The American Psychiatric Association (the world’s largest association of psychiatrists with over 38,000 members):
http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200416.aspx

The National Association of Social Workers (the largest professional association of social workers in the world with over 150,000 members):
http://www.socialworkers.org/diversity/lgb/062804.asp
http://www.socialworkers.org/diversity/lgb/SameSex-FactSheets.pdf

The American Psychoanalytic Association (the oldest professional organization of psychoanalysts in the nation with over 3,500 members):
http://www.apsa.org/ABOUTAPSAA/POSITIONSTATEMENTS/MARRIAGERESOLUTION/tabid/470/Default.aspx

Statements in support of same-sex parenting

Below are links to policy statements or research summaries of behavioral health professional organizations in support of same-sex parenting. In developing their policy statements or committee recommendations, these organizations have relied upon research indicating no evidence of any meaningful difference in parenting skills, child centered concerns, parent-child attachments or child developmental dysfunction when comparing gay, lesbian and bi-sexual parents with heterosexual parents.

The Child Welfare League of America (the nation’s oldest and largest membership based child welfare organization):
http://www.cwla.org/programs/culture/glbtqposition.htm

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (an organization of over 7,500 child and adolescent psychiatrists and allied health professionals):
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/policy_statements/gay_lesbian_and_bisexual_parents_policy_statement

The American Academy of Pediatrics (an organization of over 60,000 physicians) has not issued a policy statement in support of same-sex marriage.  However the organization has chosen to participate in the public debate by publishing in the peer-reviewed journal of Pediatrics an examination of the scientific data of children of same-sex parents.  Pawelski JG, Perrin E, Foy JM, Allen CE, Crawford JE, Del Monte M, Kaufman, M, Klein JD, Smith K,  Springer S, Tanner JL, and Vickers DL (2006) The Effects of Marriage, Civil Union, and Domestic Partnership Laws on the Health and Well-being of Children Pediatrics, Jul 2006; 118: 349 - 364.

This review is summarized in the organization’s newsletter AAP News and concludes that there no evidence that children of gay or lesbian parents have worse outcomes than children of heterosexual parents. http://aapnews.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/e2006217v1

More specifically, the article concludes that “civil marriage is a legal status that promotes healthy families….there is ample evidence to show that children raised by same-gender parents fare as well as those raised by heterosexual parents…more than 25 years of research have documented that there is no relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and any measure of a child’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral adjustment…..Conscientious and nurturing adults, whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual, can be excellent parents.  The right to the benefits and protections of civil marriage can further strengthen these families.”  Pg. 17