I've worked for all sorts of companies over the last 20 years, all software, some large, some small, some Fortune 500 size. All of them offered domestic partner benefits, and I never even thought about it.

Just this year, we switched our benefits to my husband's employer, a large and rather conservative religious-based hospital network. No, we're not religious, but this is one of the three big games in town for health care employment, so that's where he works.

We had to submit a MARRIAGE LICENSE for me to get on his benefits. Wow. I had to go to the county and get a copy, it's been so long since we needed it for anything. It really made me think about how unusual it is to be asked for it any more, for anything.

Wonder how long it will take the government to catch up with where most employers already are?

this is an excellant article - you have expertly shown that basic human rights are business interest - and that such interests are continually marching forward even as half of a whole country stand against it! top work!

We associate big business and the religious right because the Republican party purportedly stands for both of them. But in practice, they're very strange bedfellows. They try to make the bottom line a moral value (a very "Protestant-work-ethic" sort of idea), but when that conflicts with other socially conservative ideals, the gulf appears in stark contrast. Of course businesses want to attract the best employees, regardless of factors which are frankly irrelevant to productivity.

My partner used to work for Palm, and they offered benefits to domestic partners of either orientation.

Now he works for a large Redmond-based computer copmany, and I am S.O.L. because I'm a woman and not a man.

I'm pro-gay marriage, pro-equality, and pro-giving domestic partners to any two domestic aprtners, regardless of orientation!

Wealthy business interests care nothing about the social conservative agenda. They are using the zealous energy of the religious right to mobilize voters, and elect candidates who will protect/increase their wealth and power. And the religious right robots march along in lock step. They are cheap inexhaustible laborors. They will work for candidates who will pay them back by undermining their personal economic interests. The zealots will be kept happy with the opportunity to act out their fear of GLBTs, women who want to control their reproduction, or anyone who thinks and chooses for herself rather than adhering to their comfortably rigid ideology. Fearful people are so easily manipulated.

So yes, sometimes it is profitable and economically wise to do the right thing. And sometimes it isn't.

<<I'm pro-gay marriage, pro-equality, and pro-giving domestic partners to any two domestic aprtners, regardless of orientation!>>

So am I. I think some companies will give DP benefits to gay couples under the rationale that we cannot marry while straight couples can. However, to me, a DP is a DP is a DP. Equal rights for all should be the way to go. Thank you for your thoughtful remarks.

We had to submit a MARRIAGE LICENSE for me to get on his benefits. Wow. I had to go to the county and get a copy, it's been so long since we needed it for anything. It really made me think about how unusual it is to be asked for it any more, for anything.

Every company I've worked for has required documentation to add anyone to an employee's benefits.

The way I see it, either you're married or you aren't. I'm all for domestic partnership benefits for homosexuals, since they aren't allowed to marry, but not for heterosexuals.