(Bloomberg Business) — Business came out strong for same-sex marriage. But in the end, the Supreme Court vindicated gay unions nationwide not because of practical workplace concerns, but because of fundamental constitutional principles of liberty.
Hundreds of companies, from Main Street to Wall Street, urged the justices in friend-of-the-court briefs to strike down state laws banning same-sex marriage. The lineup included Amazon.com, Colgate-Palmolive, Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Walt Disney.
Allowing homosexuals to marry freely would help employers attract talent and simplify employee benefits, the corporations argued. With 37 states allowing gay marriage and the rest banning it, employers face costly administrative complexities, the main corporate brief told the justices: "The burden imposed by inconsistent and discriminatory state laws of having to administer complicated schemes to account for differential treatment of similarly situated employees breeds unnecessary confusion, tension, and diminished employee morale."
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