New Study } Gay Couples Not as Healthy as Straight Couples
Michigan State University has done a study on gay couples opposites straight ones in the health filed and how both groups have been doing in comparison to each other.
-Sex couples that live together report worse health than people of the same socioeconomic status who are in heterosexual marriages, according to a national study that could have implications for the gay marriage debate.
Research has shown that married people are healthier than the unmarried. Yet, while gay marriage is gaining support in Michigan and around the country, most same-sex cohabiters do not have the option of legally marrying their partners, noted Hui Liu, Michigan State University sociologist and lead investigator on the study.
While Liu’s research does not directly assess the potential health consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage, she said it’s plausible that allowing same-sex couples to legally wed could improve their health.
“Legalizing same-sex marriage,” Liu said, “could provide the benefits associated with marriage -- such as partner health-insurance benefits and increased social and psychological support -- which may directly and indirectly influence the health of people in same-sex unions.”
For the study, which appears in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Liu and colleagues analyzed the self-reported health of nearly 700,000 participants in the 1997-2009 National Health Interview Surveys. About 3,330 men and women are identified as same-sex cohabiters in the study.
Same-sex cohabiters reported poorer health than heterosexual married couples of similar socioeconomic status, which takes into account levels of education, income and insurance coverage. Liu said this disparity may be due to a lack of social, psychological and institutional resources that come with legal marriage as well as high levels of stress caused by homophobia and discrimination for gay couples that live together.
The study also examined differences among racial groups, finding that both white and black lesbian cohabiting women had poorer health than their heterosexual married counterparts. However, while black lesbian women who lived together reported poorer health than other unmarried black women, lesbian white women who cohabited reported similar or even better health than other unmarried white women.
Liu said white women in same-sex relationships are more likely than their black and Hispanic counterparts to have both partners in full-time employment and adhere to general ideals of equality -- factors that may boost health status -- while racial minority women in same-sex relationships may experience more stigma, discrimination and economic disadvantages that in turn undermine healing.
I respect any unbiased study on any class of gay people, like I said as done as it does it fairly and not trying to prove one point or the other.
In this study I could have save them the money because it only makes sense that the two set of couples have little in common. The straight couples are coming from an environment of acceptance and love. The gay couple in most cases the opposite. Secondly, they(gay) are in a continuous fight with the government to get the same rights as the straights not just in the act of marrying but the responsibilities and benefits that go with it. Thirdly, The health care is not the same. One Insurance in the couple can cover both. In most cases that is not possible as far as the Insurance companies are saying.
What we need to know more than anything else is that we are in a fight with a lot of entities that are well supported and have many years on their side doing what they do. We are not going to get everything right away, but we are getting it and that is the important fact. We are on top of this and if we continue to support one another and most important make friends in the straight community there will be permanent and equal treatment for us under the law and under people’s tongues, not that, we care much about that. But if is granny is saying it matters some. The change will be total because is been so bad of how we have been treated. We will be equals because we are equals as human beings deserving all human and civil rights Just like Rosa Parks got to see the change in her life and today she even got a monument not fat from Lincoln. The monument signifies that she made it. Are there problems yes,but now we have our government that we can use to enforce the law for us.
Adam Gonzalez, publisher adamfoxie*blog Int.
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