Corporate benefits for gay partners are steadily increasing in Fortune 500 companies six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, according to a report by the Associated Press.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, one of the largest civil rights organizations that represents more than 1.5 million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies are offering health insurance and other spousal benefits to their employees who are in a same-sex domestic partnerships.
"There is no more succinct way to say we have arrived than the Wal-Mart story," Deena Fidas, who directs the organization's Workplace Equality Program, told ABC News. "The stores and restaurants that you find across strip malls and along highways in every pocket of the country and that are serving demographics that are more senior in age and more rural, cutting across what conventional wisdom would tell you, are places where you now find LGBT-inclusion."
Fidas told ABC News that big businesses are now filling in the gap to accommodate LGBT Americans by giving recognition to members of the LGBT community. In its 12th annual Corporate Equality Index, a survey that rates private corporations on policies that affect gay and transgender employees and consumers, the Human Rights Campaign found increasing number of businesses that are adopting policies that prohibit discrimination against transgender employees and job seekers. The index includes 61 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 86 percent of 737 private companies.
Some of the companies mentioned in the Index include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Wendy's International Inc., Hormel Foods LLC, and Bi-Lo Holdings LLC.
Bi-Lo Holdings, parent company of South Carolina-based supermarket chains BI-LO and Winn-Dixie, began providing health coverage to its same-sex domestic partner employees in 2012.
"Offering same-sex partner coverage directly aligns with the company's diversity and inclusion practices and is part of our strategy to recruit and retain top talent," said Brian Wright, vice president of communications for Bi-Lo Holdings, told ABC News.
Same-sex marriages are still outlawed in 34 states, but the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act has led to large corporations to acknowledge gay employees and their families.
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