Google is generally thought to be...

...one of the best and most innovative companies in the world. It's been one of the bright spots in corporate America in recent years and a reason to be optimistic for our future.

In an article in today's Times, "Google to Add Pay to Cover a Tax for Same-Sex Benefits":

Working for a company as rich as Google comes with an incredible number of fringe benefits: the free food, the free laundry, the doctor on duty at company headquarters and the impressive five months of maternity leave with full pay and benefits, to mention a few.

So it is not entirely surprising that the company is about to introduce another set of benefits that pushes the envelope — this time, geared toward its gay and lesbian workers.

On Thursday, Google is going to begin covering a cost that gay and lesbian employees must pay when their partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax that heterosexual married couples do not pay. The increase will be retroactive to the beginning of the year.

“It’s a fairly cutting edge thing to do,” said Todd A. Solomon, a partner in the employee benefits department of McDermott Will & Emery, a law firm in Chicago, and author of “Domestic Partner Benefits: An Employer’s Guide.”

Google is not the first company to make up for the extra tax. At least a few large employers already do. But benefits experts say Google’s move could inspire its Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit, because they compete for the same talent.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee was the subject recently of a profile in the New Yorker. He's considered to be one of the frontrunners for the Republican nomination in 2012. On the subject of gay rights:

But Huckabee doesn’t just want to leave things the way they are; he wants to change the Constitution to specifically prohibit gay people from getting married. He has called homosexuality “sinful and unnatural” and is fond of amusing audiences with the witticism “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

One afternoon in Jerusalem, while Huckabee was eating a chocolate croissant in the lounge of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, I asked him to explain his rationale for opposing gay rights. “I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes,” he said. “Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.”

In the same piece, Steve Schmidt, John McCain's former campaign manager, said in regard to 2012, “If we’re running a race against their most articulate guy,” referring to President Obama, “we should put our most articulate guy. Huckabee’s that guy.”

Mike Huckabee is the Republican Party's most articulate guy?

Now if asked to choose a partner for the future, would you rather hitch your wagon to Google or the Republican Party?