The Experiences of Legally Married Same-Sex Couples in California

<p>With the aim of increasing practitioner competence, this dissertation provides marriage and family therapists and mental health service providers with insight into the experiences of legally married same-sex couples. Specifically, the inquiry's objective was to elicit narratives of strength and agency from these couples who navigated the oppressive circumstances of an anti-gay amendment campaign situated within the debate over the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples. Fourteen couples were interviewed in order to respond to the dissertation's overriding question: <em>How do the lesbian and gay couples and families who are among those who were legally married in California before the passage of Proposition 8 narrate their experiences of their marriages?</em> Through portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997), a method of inquiry situated within a postmodern, social constructionist framework, a narrative was produced which evolved through five emergent themes: 1) <em>Our Commitments Have Rich Histories</em> -- the symbolic and legal ways in which these couples commemorated and brought definition to their commitments, in the absence of a nationally-sanctioned and collectively-recognized state of legal marriage; 2) <em>Not a Simple Matter: The Complexities of Language Choice</em> -- their contextual language choices, which reflected the absence of representative and collectively-recognized language options for their relationships after their legal marriages; 3) <em>The Battle Metaphor</em> -- the couples' experiences of California's political debate over the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples; 4) <em>Support Shaped Lived Experiences</em> -- the impact of support from friends, family, and community; and lastly, 5) <em>Legal Marriage Shaped Individual, Relational, and Social Identities</em> -- individual, relational and social shifts that occurred for the couples through the experience of being legally married. A follow-up focus group further validated the theme <em>Support Shaped Lived Experiences</em>, and examined more deeply the tensions that occurred when important persons were silent about and/or did not recognize the legitimacy of the couples' legal marriages, and/or the discriminatory context in which their legal marriages were situated. In addition to its contribution of the experiences of legally married same-sex couples to the family therapy literature, the dissertation concludes with important implications for affirmative therapeutic practice, research, education, training, advocacy, and social policy.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Education, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Educational Studies

Year dc:date.available

2011

Author dc:creator

• Falvey, Erin Christine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rafaela Santa Cruz
• Robert Dawidoff

• anti-gay political campaigns
• counseling
• lgbt affirmative
• marriage and family therapy
• narrative
• same-sex marriage
• Counseling Psychology
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
• Mental and Social Health

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/14

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-1015