HRC Blog

Leading U.S. Companies to Supreme Court: End Marriage Discrimination

February 28, 2013 by Maureen McCarty, Online Content and Marketing Manager

Over 300 prominent and respected American companies and employers, including Apple, Morgan Stanley, Starbucks and Pfizer, have filed amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in either one or both landmark marriage equality cases.

In the brief filed in the challenge to California's Proposition 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, companies like Apple, Facebook, Xerox, Verizon, Cisco and Levi Strauss call marriage equality more than a constitutional issue, but a business imperative.

In the second brief—filed in the case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, Windsor v. United States—companies including Google, Starbucks, Amazon and Citigroup, have declared that DOMA forces companies to discriminate against their own employees, running contrary to the firms’ own corporate policies and values.

Yesterday over 100 prominent Republicans filed an amicus brief in support of marriage equality in Hollingworth v. Perry and the list continues to grow.

Earlier last week, the Respect for Marriage Coalition released the results of a groundbreaking new poll that demonstrated increasing support across party lines for marriage. The poll by Grove Insight showed that three-quarters of Americans believe it is a constitutional right to marry the person they love – including 75 percent of independents and 56 percent of Republicans.

HRC is proud to partner with Freedom to Marry in co-chairing the Respect for Marriage Coalition. The Coalition includes more than 80 civil rights, faith, health, labor, business, legal, LGBT, student and women’s organizations working together to end the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act and grow support for marriage equality.

SCOTUS is scheduled to hear oral arugments on both cases on March 26 and 27.