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Last September, the business world focused its attention on Lotus Development Corp. when it became the first large firm to offer health and other benefits to the "spousal equivalents" of its gay and lesbian employees. "The intent is to make us the employer of choice," says Russ Campanello, vice president of human resources at the Cambridge, Mass., software company.
In altering its benefits policy to treat gay couples equally with married heterosexuals, Lotus joined a handful of smaller companies and nonprofit organizations--fewer than a dozen--that have already done so, plus a few municipalities.
Of the firms and nonprofits that have made benefits available to gay partners, a sizable percentage are employers of scientists, including Montefiore Hospital in Bronx, N.Y.; the Washington, D.C.-based American Psychological Association (APA); and Greenpeace, whose United States headquarters is in ...
