The science of same-sex marriage: with the two-year anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts comes a flood of studies, books, and research papers on the benefits of marriage for gay couples and the harm caused by denying it.(MARRIAGE)

Publication: The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)

Publication Date: 23-MAY-06

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Chuck Colbert was already angry about not being able to marry his longtime partner, Troy Golladay. But when the Vatican released a statement in 2003 calling same-sex unions "gravely immoral," Colbert, then still a practicing Roman Catholic, saw his psychological and physical health decline. "It was chewing me up inside," he says. "I was very sluggish. I battled with either depression or seasonal affective disorder. I was nasty to other people. It was just poisonous."

That all changed after Colbert, 51, and Golladay, 38, were issued a marriage hcense just after midnight on May 17, 2004, in Cambridge--the first municipality in Massachusetts to issue licenses to same-sex couples. Soon Colbert and Golladay were in better mental and physical health, and the marriage allowed Colbert to get health insurance through Golladay's employer. "We now have a sense of security and place that we didn't have before," says Golladay, a marketing manager with the card company Hallmark.

The experience shared by Colbert and Golladay--mirrored by that of gay and lesbian couples around the world--hasn't gone unnoticed by academic and scientific researchers. Numerous scholarly books and research papers have been published in recent months demonstrating how allowing...

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