Study: Gay Marriage Involves More Outside Relationships

A federally-funded study by San Francisco State University that followed 556 local male couples for three years found that half “have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners,” according to The New York Times.

The study, to be completed this month by the State University’s Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, is even leading “some experts” to the conclusion that “boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution,” the newspaper reports.

The key distinction is that so many homosexuals do not view cheating on each other as wrong, the way married men and women do. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” the study’s principal investigator Colleen Hoff told the newspaper, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”

On its website, the Center describes the importance in conducting the study as revolving around the fact that “gay and bisexual men in relationships engage in substantially higher rates of unprotected” homosexual activity than do “single men with their casual partners.”

Hoff and her fellow researchers apparently seek to re-evaluate whether such “non-safe sex” risks as much spread of AIDS as is widely believed. According to the Center, “whether these behaviors are ‘risky’ depends on many factors and needs to be further explored.”

With the high rates of non-exclusivity among homosexuals, “and primary partners an often unrecognized and under-studied source of new HIV infections,” the State University investigators say “studying gay and bisexual male couples is an important next step in HIV research and prevention.”

But the New York Times could not get homosexuals themselves to discuss in the open the claimed success of the widespread prevalence of “open” unions. “Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns.” Another big worry discovered among those contacted: “that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.”

One male pair interviewed, who got their marriage license at San Francisco City Hall a year and a half ago, “opened their relationship a year ago after concluding that they were not fully meeting each other’s needs.” But they imposed on each other a set of “complete disclosure” rules, which apparently amounted to reporting everything about the other men, and about all the encounters with them, both before and after the fact.

Homosexuality advocates and theorists are hailing the study’s findings. Steve Weinstein, editor-in-chief of EDGE Boston, told Life Site News the research falls into “the category of ‘studies that confirm the painfully obvious.’” And “It’s Not You, It’s Biology” author Joe Quirk claimed, “The traditional American marriage is in crisis, and we need insight,” adding that “If innovation in marriage is going to occur, it will be spearheaded by homosexual marriages.”

The San Francisco State University’s three-year study was “made possible by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health,” a Maryland-based federal agency that is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.