Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. was Director of Mental Help Net from 1999 to 2011. Dr. Dombeck received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1995 ...Read More
In this age of instant news, the decision issued yesterday by U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturning California’s Proposition 8, the (state) constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, is already old news. I am writing therefore less to spread the word, and more to say what wonderful and great news this decision is, advancing as it does the cause of equal rights. Speaking as a psychologist, as a concerned human being, and as a publisher of a mental health website, I know that this decision is good for America’s collective mental health.
Judge Walker’s decision does not go into effect immediately, but rather is stayed for now in anticipation of appeal. If this decision stands at the level of the Federal Court of Appeals, it may again be appealed, if the US Federal Supreme Court will agree to hear it. In other words, this process may take years.
Though the final outcome thus remains uncertain …
Yay!!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations to all those worthy couples who may hope to benefit from this, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
Homosexuality is not a disorder. It is not a disease. It is not a threat. It is a completely normal, biologically organized (for the most part) sexual orientation which has always existed, in humans and in other animals, and always will exist, despite religious intolerance and other social factors that have caused it to be “outlawed”. It shares more in common with being left-handed than with being immoral. There is no rational basis for people who happen to have been born with homosexual orientation/desire to face ridicule, discrimination or persecution. It is wrong in a fundamental way that laws have been passed which make homosexually identified individuals second class citizens, and a good thing that, at least for the moment, one such law has been found to be unconstitutional.
Mark Dombeck, Ph.D.
