Just when you think you’ve heard it all, the American Psychological Association decides this: Monogamy is the new bigotry.
That’s right. According to the supposed “mental health experts,” open marriages are the tolerant approach to intimacy. And they’ve launched a task force to prove it to the world.
According to the APA’s official description of this initiative, “Finding love and/or sexual intimacy is a central part of most people’s life experience. However, the ability to engage in desired intimacy without social and medical stigmatization is not a liberty for all.”
People who practice “consensual non-monogamy,” as the APA calls it, are unduly “marginalized,” and it’s time, the APA argues, to promote “awareness and inclusivity” for people who practice “polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types of ethical, non-monogamous relationships.”
Well, the APA may call these open relationships “ethical,” but the American people sure don’t.
In Gallup’s latest survey on moral acceptability, it’s hard to find a behavior more universally frowned upon than adultery or polygamy. Only 9% of the country agrees with the APA that fidelity is somehow narrow-minded or passé. The multiple-spouse relationship has mildly more support at 18%.
Still, the head of the task force writes, “I’m concerned about the lack of support this community is receiving.”
Too many clients who are in consensual non-monogamous (CNM) relationships, have to educate their therapists. Too many of them discontinue therapy because their therapist judged them, didn’t know enough about CNM to be helpful, or worse, makes actively stigmatizing comments … .
It’s time, he insists, “to examine our biases and take a non-judgmental posture toward clients engaged in consensual non-monogamy—just as we would with LGBTQ clients.”
The Family Research Council’s Cathy Ruse, who–like most—thinks the APA has long been off the rails for some time, can’t believe the organization is fighting to give swingers “protected legal status.” And they’re supposed to be the psychologically healthy ones.
Keep in mind, she points out, “the American Psychological Association is a professional guild. When it makes a controversial decision, like this one, that decision is not made by a vote of its 100,000+ members (which include ‘educators’ and ‘students,’ according to Wikipedia). No, it is made by small numbers of powerful activists, who have sought out places of influence, like task forces.”
And how will the APA fight for the liberty of sexual anarchists against “social and medical stigmatization?” she asks. With a measly budget of just over $100 million.
Just as it’s tried to tear down the social norms for transgenderism and other sexual proclivities, it’ll start in the usual place—soft targets, like children.
“How long will it take American public schools to incorporate swinging into their sex ed?” she wonders. As long as it took them to stigmatize abstinence and promote sexual anarchy in its place? If so, we won’t have to wait long.
Originally published in Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, which is written with the aid of Family Research Council senior writers.
