Same-sex marriage: Firms battle feds' benefits ban

[diane in sf]

Source: sfgate.com

-- Some of the nation's most prominent corporations have joined the legal battle against the federal ban on marital benefits for same-sex couples, saying the law drives up employers' costs and makes them the agents of government-sanctioned bias. The 1996 law, known as the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA, "conscripts (employers) to become the face of its discrimination," lawyers for 60 companies said Thursday in papers filed with a federal appeals court in Boston.

Participants included Microsoft, Google, Aetna, Nike, Levi Strauss, Starbucks, CBS and Time Warner Cable. The brief was also signed by several trade organizations and the city governments of Boston, New York and Cambridge, Mass.

DOMA denies federal benefits, including joint tax filings, Social Security survivor coverage and immigration privileges, to same-sex couples legally married in their states. A federal judge in Boston declared the law unconstitutional in July 2010, saying the federal government had historically respected states' definitions of marriage and refused to do so in this case because of prejudice.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/04/BUMR1LQQV3.DTL&tsp=1

[hack89]

1. Those evil corporations are at it again! nt

[Tempest]

7. Only because it affects their bottom line

Otherwise they wouldn't be supporting it.

[ck4829]

2. Better do what those job creators want.

[redixdoragon]

3. This isn't out of the kindness of their hearts...

And I have a feeling that same sex couples are about to get fleeced somehow if they get their way on this.

They wouldn't bother to lift an eyebrow to this situation if there weren't money to be made somehow

[yardwork]

4. What? Same sex couples will be "fleeced" if the government stops discriminating against us?

"If they get their way on this?" Whose way? What are you talking about?

[sakabatou]

12. I don't think the poster ment the government

[mitchtv]

18. already being fleeced

my earned income would be a grand lower if I didn't have to declare my partner's benfits through my retirement, as taxable income.For starters.

[yardwork]

19. Mitch, hush up. Don't you realize that we're all gonna get fleeced if they give in to our demands?

[AlbertCat]

11. This isn't out of the kindness of their hearts...

Of course not... they have no hearts.... because Corporations are not "persons".

Of course it's about the bottom line. That's what corporations do... worry about the bottom line. Because they are not "persons".

Corporations are acting like corporations... as anyone would expect them to do.... because they are not "persons".

This should be no surprise. Because corporations are not "persons".

End corporate personhood.

And get the government out of the marriage business altogether.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. it is foolish to want government out of the marriage business

unless you want government out of protecting children, families, immigration, visitation rights, property rights and a host of other things that marriage encompasses.

[AlbertCat]

15. it is foolish to want government out of the marriage business

All government should do is grant domestic partnerships so that children from such a union can be legal and property can be owned legally. (protecting children, families, immigration, visitation rights, property rights and a host of other things)

Marriage is not necessary for this.

After you get your domestic partnership and are legal, you can get married which is a religious/cultural ceremony, if you want.... or not. Marriage will not effect your legal status.

Or, if you want to get married without a domestic partnership... that's fine too. But your children and property will not be "legal" until you get a domestic partnership.

It's just a matter of taking the religion out of the government side of the equation. Nothing foolish about it.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. so all you are doing is substituting the word marriage for domestic partnership

what advantage is there to this? the institution already exists with these protections, what exactly is gained by renaming it?

[Chan790]

20. It's not out of the kindness of their hearts...

DOMA drives up benefit costs for employers. They're doing it to lower their costs and pass some portion of the cost of those benefits back to Uncle Sam who covers those costs for hetero-marriages though tax policy.

This is a net positive for gay couples...it's a lawsuit to force the federal government to extend the legal and economic benefits of marriage to all gay marriages sanctioned by the states.

[yardwork]

5. 290 views and only ten recommends? This says a lot about DU's attitude toward equal rights.

Seriously. Only ten people out of the 290 who have viewed this agree that gay couples deserve equal rights?

[Tempest]

8. Christ. It's only 7am on the west coast

Give people a chance to wake up.

[yardwork]

9. 290 people have staggered to their computers and read it.

[Tempest]

10. How do you know?

They may have clicked on the story only to skim it like I did without really getting into the content because they're still waking up.

And now that I've had my coffee and brushed my teeth I read the story and recommended it.

[HillWilliam]

6. I was pleased to see Biogen Idec in the list

I did some contract programming for them this summer in RTP, a short-term web project. Hope I can hire-in permanently some day.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. while corporations are evil in many ways, in the same sex rights battle

most of them (besides the oil companies) are eons ahead of society.

[iandhr]

16. Credit where credit is do

On this issue people should not be bashing these companies. They provide and continue to provide benefits despite the cost.

[and-justice-for-all]

21. DOMA is federally sanctioned bigotry...nt