Family Attorney

The city’s Board of Supervisors today passed an ordinance giving legal recognition to the ‘’domestic partnership'’ of homosexuals and unmarried heterosexual couples.

The city’s Board of Supervisors today passed an ordinance giving legal recognition to the ‘’domestic partnership'’ of homosexuals and unmarried heterosexual couples.

By a vote of 9 to 0, with two board members absent, San Francisco became the first major city to provide for the public registration of these relationships in the same way that other couples file marriage licenses.

The immediate impact of the measure will be to extend to domestic partnerships the same hospital visitation rights accorded to married couples. In addition, city employees in a domestic partnership will now have the same bereavement leave policy as married city workers. Both of these benefits are crucial issues to San Francisco’s gay community, which has been hit hard by the AIDS epidemic.

The ordinance also mandates that the city and country, in instituting new policies or practices, cannot treat marital status differently from domestic partnership.

Mayor Art Agnos is expected to sign the ordinance within 10 days, a spokesman said. Rules for Recognition

The ordinance defines domestic partnerships as ‘’two people who have chosen to share one another’s lives in an intimate and committed relationship.'’ The two must live together and be jointly responsible for basic living expenses; neither may be married to anyone else. The couple must file a declaration of domestic partnership with the county clerk and pay a $35 fee. The partners must also file a notice of termination if their relationship ends.

Harry G. Britt, the president of the Board of Supervisors and a leader in the gay community here who sponsored the ordinance, predicted that other cities would now follow San Francisco’s example. ‘’There was a nervousness about this issue that needed to be overcome,'’ he said.

Gay rights groups in Boston and New York are already organizing efforts to have such measures adopted.

Arthur Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, said a group called the Family Diversity Coalition is meeting with members of the New York City Council to find a sponsor for the measure. He also said candidates for Mayor would be questioned on the issue at a forum tonight sponsored by the Stonewall Democratic Club, a predominantly gay political group. Veto of 1982 Measure

In 1982 the San Francisco board, by a vote of 8 to 3, passed a measure that extended health insurance coverage to domestic partners, but it was vetoed by Mayor Dianne Feinstein. Two years later she also rejected the recommendation of her Task Force on Equal Benefits to extend health benefits to the partners of city employees.

In both 1982 and this year the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco strongly objected to the ordinances. In a statement issued May 23, Archbishop John Quinn called the current measure an attack on marriage and family life.

The current measure gives a committee 90 days to create a plan under which the domestic partners of city workers may be included in health insurance coverage. The plan would have to be adopted by the Health Services System, which administers health benefits offered to city employees.

The workers themselves would bear the cost of adding domestic partners to the plan because San Francisco does not pay for health insurance for the spouses or dependants of most city employees.

Three smaller California cities, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and West Hollywood, have already passed ordinances that to some degree recognize domestic partnerships. In 1985, for example, Berkeley extended health benefits to the unmarried partners of city workers.

Last year Los Angeles allowed unmarried city employees to use sick leave and bereavement leave upon the illness or death of a domestic partner if the couple has privately registered with the city after living together at least a year.

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