I had intended to complete the second half of my business succession planning series when I happened to read an interesting article about what state by state recognition of gay marriage will mean to domestic partnership benefits. As you know, I’ve never been entirely thrilled with state-only recognition of gay marriage because I feel that it creates a mess of legal problems for unique families like my own. Because there are no Federal laws that support gay marriage, gay and lesbian families must continue to file taxes separately regardless of whether or not they live in a state that recognizes gay marriage, gay and lesbian couples continue to be denied many of the federal tax incentives present for straight married couples in everything from insurance, business and estate planning. Now, while gay and lesbian families who enough live in “gay marriage states” may see their domestic partnership benefits dry up unless they chose to become married in their state.
I don’t want to always be the voice of Doom, but it is possible that we could see companies slowly withdraw domestic partnership benefits across the board in anticipation of state recognition. Hopefully, this will not happen, but at a time when businesses are struggling to stay afloat you cannot always expect them to choose an ethical approach over one that saves them money.
State-by-state gay marriage amendments certainly boost morale and have the power to create a social awakening, but unfortunately they do very little to provide financial and legal equality for gay and lesbian families.