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With regard to the recent initiative by the American Psychoanalytic Association in support of same-sex marriage (Psychiatric News, February 6), I believe, and most in the profession would agree, that adults in a consensual and committed relationship should have the civil rights and privileges of such a union regardless of gender and sexual preference. However, the issue of homosexuality has taken a new dimension in this pronouncement by the American Psychoanalytic Association. In the pursuit of enlightenment various learned societies have condemned past dicta and all but declared homosexuality immune to pathology (only heterosexuals now have the potential for perverse or pathological sexuality).
Furthermore, the psychoanalysts have ventured into holy matrimony and declared that same-sex unions should be made lawful marriages.
It should be recalled that for millennia marriage has been a religious concern (even among pagans). Only in the recent era has civil law been increasingly involved in the matter, and when a union was not ritualized by benefit of clergy, it was designated a "common-law marriage."
There are, of course, many aspects of marriage that do require governmental involvement. However, the marital ceremony is still heavily tied to a religious commitment, and various faiths have been stating their positions on same-sex marriage. In declaring itself in favor of same-sex unions, is the psychoanalytic establishment preparing to "come out" as a religion?
L.D. Hankoff, M.D.
West Hempstead, N.Y.