Nearly 300 companies, along with several law firms and municipalities, have submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Many recognizable companies signed on, including Adobe, Amazon, Apple, CBS, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, eBay, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, Intel, JetBlue Airways, The Jim Henson Company, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Mars, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nike, Pfizer, Planet Fitness, Starbucks, Sun Life Financial, Twitter, Viacom, the Walt Disney Company, and Xerox. They are joined by the cities of Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Providence, San Francisco, and Seattle, among others. One interesting signatory of note is Bain & Company, the management consultant firm that Mitt Romney once worked for — not to be confused with Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital.

The brief argues that DOMA places burdens on companies that impede their ability to recruit and retain productive employees because of the strains on benefits. In many ways, these companies are bound by the law to discriminate against their employees against their wishes, and they often incur financial burdens to simply find ways to navigate around DOMA. These companies make it clear that it violates their business models to comply with DOMA:

DOMA imposes on amici not simply considerable burden of compliance and cost. DOMA conscripts amici to become the face of its mandate that two separate castes of married persons be identified and separately treated. As employers, we must administer employment-related health-care plans, retirement plans, family leave, and COBRA. We must impute the value of spousal health-care benefits to our employees’ detriment. We must treat one employee less favorably, or at minimum differently, when each is as lawfully married as the other. We must do all of this in states, counties, and cities that prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and demand equal treatment of all married individuals. This conscription has harmful consequences. [...]

Our principles are not platitudes. Our mission statements are not simply plaques in the lobby. Statements of principle are our agenda for success: born of experience, tested in laboratory, factory, and office, attuned to competition. Our principles reflect, in the truest sense, our business judgment. By force of law, DOMA rescinds that judgment and directs that we renounce these principles or, worse yet, betray them.

These companies have made it clear that inequality harms not just the families of LGBT people, but American businesses as well. As Joe Jervis suggests, conservatives would have a difficult time boycotting so many ubiquitous companies.

UPS has confirmed that it has implemented a new policy for its charitable giving that will disqualify groups like the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The UPS Foundation posted the following on its site yesterday:

The UPS Foundation seeks to support organizations that are in alignment with our focus areas, guidelines, and non-discrimination policy. UPS and The UPS Foundation do not discriminate against any person or organization with regard to categories protected by applicable law, as well as other categories protected by UPS and The UPS Foundation in our own policies. These include, but are not limited to race, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran or military status, pregnancy, age and religion.

In September, The American Independent reported on companies like UPS and Intel that had made donations to the Boy Scouts. In 2010, UPS gave $167,000 to BSA and clarified at that time that it would not be changing its policies. At that time, Intel clarified to ThinkProgress that it had already implemented a new safeguard to prevent the company’s charitable giving from supporting discriminating organizations or charities. Intrepid activist Zach Wahls then led a petition effort against UPS, which has apparently followed suit.

Daily Kos is running a campaign to thank the UPS Foundation for standing by its principled support of LGBT equality and ending its donations to the Boy Scouts.

Earlier this week, The American Independent reported that Intel was one of the Boy Scouts of America’s largest corporate donors in 2010, giving over $700,000 to local troops and councils as matching grants for employees’ volunteer work. Scouts for Equality founder Zach Wahls responded by launching a Change.org petition calling on the computer chip maker to cease financial support for any group, like the Boy Scouts, that discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation.

Today, Intel clarified to ThinkProgress that it has already adjusted its policies to prevent such donations in the future. The company first launched its Involved Matching Grant Program three years ago, offering donations to organizations for which employees volunteer, but there was originally no mechanism to ensure that they aligned with Intel’s nondiscrimination principles. As checks were being cut at the end of last year, Intel realized that many were going to organizations — including, but not limited to, the Boy Scouts — that were out of step with those principles. This year, for the first time, prospective recipients of Intel grants will have to sign a statement confirming that they do not discriminate based on creed or sexual orientation, and any groups that cannot do so will be ineligible for funding.

Intel’s Chief Diversity Officer, Rosalind Hudnell, provided the following statement to ThinkProgress:

HUDNELL: Intel and the Intel Foundation give millions of dollars annually to great organizations doing valuable service around the globe. Intel has not provided funding to the National Boy Scouts of America organization.  The $700,000 in funding from the Intel Foundation was donated to local Boy Scout troops or councils where our employees volunteer their time, through our volunteer matching grants program.

In an effort to recognize our employees commitment to the communities we call home, Intel expanded its volunteer matching grants program in 2009.  Through it, Intel matches the amount of time employees’ volunteer with non-profits with dollars from the Intel Foundation. Due to significant growth in the number of organizations funded, earlier this year we revisited our policies associated with the program, and applied new rigor that requires any organization to confirm that it adheres to Intel’s anti-discrimination policy in order to receive funding.

Intel is committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and to supporting the communities in which we live and work.

Under the policy, the growing number of Boy Scout troops and councils that refuse to abide by BSA’s discriminating policy would still be eligible for Intel’s funding. Hopefully, the company’s ongoing commitment to its employees and their volunteer work will help more troops shift to a policy of inclusion.

Scout leader Greg Bourke was fired this week for being gay.

Since the Boy Scouts of America announced it was sticking with its anti-gay policy in July, without any explanation as to why it was the “best policy for the organization,” pressure has increased against the group as well as its donors. In addition to a new steady stream of Eagle Scouts returning their badges, churches and charities have begun to pull their funding. This week, another Boy Scout Leader was fired for being gay in Kentucky and is petitioning for reinstatement.

The American Independent has published a new report identifying the BSA’s largest corporate donors, many of which continue to give despite having policies against giving to organizations that discriminate based on sexual orientation. In particular, the Intel corporation gave about $700,000 to the Boy Scouts in 2010, almost half of which went to troops and councils directly connected to the Mormon Church. The Church of Latter Day Saints sponsors nearly 38,000 scouting units — 34 percent of all units nationwide — and has said it would abandon that support if gays and lesbians were allowed to serve as scout leaders. The intrepid son-of-two-moms advocate Zach Wahls has launched a petition calling on Intel, which has a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, to end its anti-gay giving.

Other companies that have given to BSA include Verizon ($318,000 in 2010) as well as big banks Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, and Bank of America, each of which gave more than $100,000: