Posted on: Sunday, April 18, 2004

Debate over gay marriage extends to workplace, with benefits sought

By Stephanie Armour
USA Today

Just after Valentine's Day, Tina Capozzola went to San Francisco to marry the woman she's been with for more than 19 years.

Now she hopes to set another precedent. She wants her company to provide the same health insurance and other benefits offered to other married couples.

"I'm going to continue to speak with them about why they don't offer us the same rights," says Capozzola, 44, an occupational therapist in Sacramento. "Now that I'm married, I'm more aware of all the rights we've been missing out on. We don't want to go back. We want to keep moving forward."

The gay marriage debate is coming to the workplace as same-sex couples push for major changes on the job.

Activists want the same benefits long considered the domain of traditional married couples, including health insurance, family leave, access to a partner's pension, company scholarships for children and adoption benefits. They also hope publicity over gay marriage will focus attention on the challenges that gays face on the job, including fears about discrimination.

Activists are hoping to build on major advances gay employees have made in the workplace. One sign of the change: More employers — about 23 percent of companies — offer domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples, according to a 2003 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.

"This is a real opportunity," says Kim Mills of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group in Washington. "Employers who have been sitting on the sidelines are going to have to step up."

It's also raising concern. Opponents of gay marriage say companies will be strong-armed into expanding benefits, causing costs to soar. And they say faith-based nonprofit groups and religious schools will be unfairly forced to offer benefits to gay couples.

"This is going to create a new class of people who get all the benefits of marriage. Businesses may just have to get out of providing healthcare because they won't be able to afford it," says Ron Crews, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a nonprofit policy group that opposes gay marriage.

Inequality of benefits cited

Gay activists say there are a number of disparities between the benefits offered to married couples and those offered to domestic partners:

• Companies often have specific criteria for domestic partners, including how long they have been together and how much financial support they provide each other. The requirements guard against abuse, but gay activists say it's an unfair hurdle that heterosexuals don't face.

• Some company benefit plans restrict who can be designated as a beneficiary. That means same-sex couples might have difficulty naming a partner as a beneficiary for some retirement and life insurance benefits.

• Gay employees might not be able to get insurance through work for children who are not legally recognized as their own. And gay couples can't apply for continued health coverage (COBRA) for a partner after the loss of a job.

• Gay couples have no right under federal law to medical leave if a partner falls ill or to bereavement leave if a partner dies. They often are denied adoption assistance.

Mike Holloman, 32, a financial analyst in Houston, works for a company that offers domestic partner benefits. But his partner, Tim Surratt, 42, and their 10-year-old adopted son, Tommy, currently can't get insurance through Holloman's company.

To get the benefits, couples must have lived together at least two years, and the employee must provide at least 50 percent of household income. Holloman doesn't earn enough to meet that standard, and their son is legally recognized only as Surratt's.

"To my company, Britney Spears' temporary marriage carried more clout than the almost seven years that Tim and I have been together," Holloman says.

Many firms inclusive

A growing number of companies are reaching out to gay employees as demographics change and more families break the traditional mold.

In 2000, 3.8 million unmarried partners lived together, making up 3.7 percent of U.S. households, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

More than half of Fortune 500 companies, including McDonald's and General Electric, ban discrimination because of sexual orientation.

IBM is trying to increase the number of gay-owned suppliers it uses. By the end of the year, the number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-owned businesses it uses as vendors will rise to 250 from 30. In addition to domestic partner benefits and a discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation, there is an internal task force of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees.

Critics of gay marriage say current laws provide enough protection to gay employees. Mandating coverage or legitimizing marriage between same-sex couples, they say, will put an unfair burden on businesses.