Opinion:   “The Amendment will not prevent businesses that offer benefits to same-sex couples from continuing to offer those benefits, including health insurance. It has no legal impact on private businesses in any way.



Fact:    Ultimately, this amendment's effect on business is irrelevant. We decide these rights based on their effect on individuals, not businesses. The fact that businesses overwhelmingly support these marriages is a consideration only tangentially. The rightness or wrongness of this proposal can only be decided on civil rights grounds.

But, can a company continue to include same-sex partners in its partner-benefit packages? Nothing in the amendment would, specifically, say otherwise. The very real concern is, as has happened in other states, courts and regulators will interpret the amendment narrowly. If a particular benefit is challenged, by employers, employees, or insurers, it is very easy to foresee restrictive rulings against benefits. As we've seen in other states, specifically Ohio (whose amendment is less restrictive than the proposed amendment here) when benefits and legal protections come before the courts, courts often use amendments to rule against rights. Aside from very real procedural hurdles which would be heightened by this amendment, the first-hand experience of many North Carolinians who have urged their employers to extend same-sex benefits is telling, and constitutional bans against domestic partnerships can only intensify any current reluctance against these benefits.