While the past few decades have brought significant changes to the American workplace and to the rules that govern employment, the law still accords great latitude to employers.
Traditionally, an employer at least an employer other than the government itself -- could hire or fire any employee whenever it wanted and for whatever reason. This rule, known to lawyers as the "employment at will" doctrine, meant, as one court put it in 1884, that a worker could be discharged "for good cause, for no cause or even for cause morally wrong." (Nan D. Hunter, 1991).
But, happily, the employment at will doctrine is no longer the whole story. In recent years, Congress and many state and local legislatures have engrafted exceptions onto the doctrine, such as the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlaws discrimination on account of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin (Paula L. Ettelbrick, 1989). Some state courts have also limited the doctrine's scope. And many employers have voluntarily adopted policies of nondiscrimination, especially large corporations. Today it would be more accurate to say that a worker can be fired for a good reason or a bad reason but not for a prohibited reason.
Thus the same is happening in most companies that, lesbians and gay men are still in the protective arm of the law and are not to great extent subject to the stern command of employment at will. There are approximately 8,000 U.S. firms that currently provide domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples, including large companies such as Microsoft, Kraft, Ford, and Crest and other P&G products.
David Smith, spokesman for The Human Rights Campaign said that the number of U.S. firms offering such benefits has exploded since 1992. He feels that the main reason is economic: many companies need to offer.....
