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Meaningful Voices: How Psychologists, Speaking as Psychologists, Can Inform Social Policy
Author(s) -
Frost David M.,
Ouellette Suzanne C.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2004.00044.x
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , meaning (existential) , mental health , psychology , statement (logic) , george (robot) , discursive psychology , social psychology , sociology , epistemology , political science , law , discourse analysis , psychotherapist , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science
Kitzinger and Wilkinson (2004) posit that social advocacy can be argued for within both a discourse of equal rights and a discourse of mental health. They suggest that psychological evidence, because it is bound to a discourse of mental health, is currently not useful in advancing the campaigns for equal marriage rights. In our response to their argument, we (1) agree that the currently available psychological evidence is limited; (2) make the case that it is still important for psychologists to produce evidence that speaks to this debate; and (3) suggest how psychologists, still speaking as psychologists, can produce evidence that speaks to this debate through underutilized theoretical and methodological approaches to relevant issues. The authors analyze a key statement by United States President George W. Bush on the meaning of marriage and the available psychological literature on same‐sex relationships to support their position.