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Economics & Business
Excluding same-sex couples and their families from marriage not only causes economic hardship for families, but also negatively impacts businesses.
Marriage discrimination causes economic hardship for families. Same sex couples and their families are a reflection of America; they live in 99% of American counties and are even more racially diverse than the general population (pdf). Just as lesbian and gay couples take care of each other and their families with the same love and commitment as any other couple, they also have the same sets of economic decisions to make as everyone else. Unlike everyone else, however, committed same sex couples experience numerous economic injustices (pdf) directly connected to their exclusion from the protections marriage provides such as family health insurance, property rights, social security benefits, automatic inheritance, and divorce.
Excluding same-sex couples from marriage negatively impacts business. Offering insurance benefits to married spouses of employees is one of the most effective recruitment and retention tools for companies. When this process is made simple and easy for all employees, employers benefit financially. The continuing exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage makes offering gay and lesbian employees family benefits a complicated and costly process for employers (pdf). In addition, gay and lesbian employees stand to lose many other important family protections because of marriage discrimination. Despite such financial challenges, companies around the country are taking a stand against discrimination; a majority of Fortune 500 companies now offer domestic partner benefits.
Ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage will allow same-sex couples and their families access to the economic safety net that our government currently provides married couples while also positively impacting the U.S. economy.
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Evan Wolfson discusses the life-altering consequences of denying same-sex couples the economic safety net that comes with marriage.
HRC's WorkPlace Project contains reports on businesses' policies concerning benefits for gay and lesbian employees and their partners, and how ending discrimination in marriage is not just personal, but good for business.
This report discusses (pdf) how employer policies that treat employees with same-sex partners or spouses equally would improve the health and well-being of their families, which results in gains for both the employee and his or her family as well as to the employer.
