More Than Sixty Companies Urge SCOTUS To Knock Down Prop 8

Jim Burroway

February 27th, 2013

News reports are emerging that more than sixty major companies, including Apple, Alcoa, Facebook, eBay, Intel, Morgan Stanley, and Nike, will sign on to an Amicus Brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Prop 8 unconstitutional:

According to a draft copy obtained by Fortune, the companies argue that such laws “send an unmistakeable signal that same-sex couples are in some way inferior to opposite-sex couples, a proposition that is anathema to amici’s commitment to equality and fair treatment to all.”

At least 60 companies had committed to signing the brief as of Tuesday evening, according to Joshua Rosenkranz, who is counsel of record on the brief and head of the Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. That number is expected to rise by Thursday, however, according to Rosenkranz. Others who have already committed to sign include AIG, Becton Dickinson, Cisco, Cummins, Kimpton, Levi Strauss, McGraw Hill, NCR, Nike, Office Depot, Oracle, Panasonic, Qualcomm, and Xerox. (Update: Verizon and Cablevision have now joined.)

The companies’ brief says that “”recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry is more than a constitutional issue. It is a business imperative.”

“By singling out a group for less favorable treatment, Proposition 8 impedes businesses from achieving the market’s ideal of efficient operations — particularly in recruiting, hiring, and retaining talented people who are in the best position to operate at their highest capacity. Amici are competing domestically and internationally with companies inside and outside the United States in places where all couples, regardless of whether they are of the same sex, are afforded equal access to marriage.”

…Laws like Prop 8 “leave companies in the untenable position of being compelled implicitly to endorse the second-class status to which their gay and lesbian employees, clients, customers, and business associates are relegated,” the brief argues. “Until the law no longer relegates same-sex couples to second-class status as inferior “domestic partnerships,” our adherence to the law compels us to abide by a distinction that stigmatizes and dehumanizes gay men and lesbians.”

JohnAGJ

February 27th, 2013

At least NOM has a better list of companies to target or boycotts. After all, such tactics have worked so well for them in the past. /s

markanthony

February 27th, 2013

Once the brief is filed, it would be interesting to see if any new big names are added. Companies that haven’t supported this issue in the past.

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