BOSTON – Seventy businesses and organizations have filed a brief in federal court highlighting the harms to American companies caused by the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The amicus curiae brief – signed by a wide diversity of corporations from tech giants Microsoft and Google to consumer brands Nike and Starbucks – supports the Gill v. OPM case challenging the denial of federal rights and benefits to lawfully married gay and lesbian couples brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), as well as the consolidated case brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts challenging DOMA’s discrimination against its own citizens.
The brief states the burden of compliance with DOMA is four-fold: It compromises transparent fairness of workplace benefits and ethos; it strains the employer/employee relationship; it forces employers to incur administrative burdens and expense; it forces employers to affirm discrimination they regard as injurious to the corporate mission.
DOMA prevents any of the more than 1,100 federal rights, benefits and responsibilities of marriage from being afforded to legally married same-sex couples.
The Human Rights Campaign supported GLAD in marshaling businesses to join this brief and has also announced it is forming a business coalition to support DOMA repeal as part of its “Americans for Marriage Equality” campaign.
