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Oregon same-sex marriage ban 'wrong' and bad for business: Employers

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Oregon same-sex marriage ban 'wrong' and bad for business: Employers

A group of large and midsize employers in Oregon says the state's ban on same-sex marriage is not only “morally and legally wrong,” it's also bad for business.

Nike Inc., Intel Corp., Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. were among the 36 corporations and trade associations with headquarters or regional operations in Oregon represented in an amicus brief filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore.

In their brief — filed in support of four gay and lesbian couples who sued the state in December in the hopes of overturning a 2004 amendment to the Oregon Constitution outlawing same-sex marriages — the employers say complying with the statewide ban forces them to uphold discriminatory laws that run counter to their values and corporate principals.

“Just as our society has rejected racial and gender discrimination, so too have (the employers) rejected discrimination that is based on sexual orientation,” the employers stated in their brief.

Oral arguments in the couples' lawsuits — which have since been consolidated into a single case — are scheduled for later this month. In February, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum dropped her office's defense of the ban in federal court.

Aside from their moral and legal reasoning for supporting the plaintiffs, the employers' brief also outlined the many ways the state's ban on same-sex marriage inflicts “very real harm” on their economic interests.

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“Oregon businesses must attract and retain the best employee talent to compete effectively in the national and global economy,” the employers said in their brief, adding that the ban interferes with employers' recruitment, retention and deployment of gay and lesbian employees.

Those efforts, the employers said, are made “more challenging in states like Oregon, where employees who are or will be in a same-sex relationship are discriminated against.”

The employers also lamented the “complicated landscape of laws and human resources regulations” resulting from the ban's application, including the “administrative nightmare” and additional costs they encounter by having to offer disparate health care, retirement and parental leave benefits to gay and lesbian employees and their spouses, depending on the applicable state laws where they work.

“Some (employers) often must retain costly experts to craft benefit policies and structure compensation systems that provide certain benefits to employees who are based in states that do not discriminate against same-sex couples and more limited benefits to employees who are based in Oregon,” the employers said. “Employers also incur significant costs to educate human resources, benefits and payroll administrators regarding these differing benefits, as well as to manage and administer this complicated web of benefits.”

A full copy of the employers' amicus brief is available here.

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