HRC To Corporations: Keep Domestic Partnerships After Same-Sex Marriage Becomes Legal Nationwide

Via press release from the Human Rights Campaign:

HRC research shows that two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partner benefits to employees with same-sex partners. And 62 percent of those companies also make domestic partner benefits available to employees with opposite-sex partners.

Companies that move to eliminate domestic partner benefits, and instead require legal marriage to ensure partner and family benefits, will be putting their employees’ family members -- including both same-sex and opposite-sex partners -- at risk of being uninsured. And they would also put scores of LGBT employees and their families who live in states without full non-discrimination protections at risk for discrimination in employment, credit, housing, and public accommodation.

“If an LGBT employee is, in effect, ‘outed’ by being required to obtain a public marriage license in a state that doesn’t provide explicit non-discrimination protections, it could place that employee and their family at risk of being denied credit, housing and public accommodation,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “These core elements of daily life could be compromised for LGBT families, even in states that might honor their marriage license.”

Last month the Wall Street Journal reported that some major corporations including Verizon and Delta Airlines are already phasing out unmarried same-sex partner benefits in states where same-sex marriage is legal.