WASHINGTON—The American Psychological Association praised today’s U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding a U.S. District Court’s 2010 decision overturning Proposition 8. APA had filed a brief in the case (Perry vs. Brown) providing the scientific research relevant to the association’s support for marriage equality for same-sex couples. Proposition 8 took away the right of same-sex couples to marry in California that had been granted by the state Supreme Court in 2008.

“Research shows that marriage provides important health and wellness benefits and that same-sex couples are similar to heterosexual couples in essential ways including the fact that they are just as likely as opposite-sex couples to raise mentally healthy, well-adjusted children,” said APA President Suzanne Bennett Johnson, PhD. “There is no scientific basis for denying marriage equality to same-sex couples.”

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Read the Full Decision of the California Ninth Circuit appeals court here.