Coverage Pushed For Same-Sex Couples

Pressing a new case for the equal treatment of same-sex couples, San Francisco is moving to become the first major city in the country to require the companies with which it does business to offer health and other benefits to the unmarried partners of their employees.

The city’s Board of Supervisors passed legislation by a 10-0 vote on Monday to prohibit the city government from contracting with companies that do not make the same benefits available to employees’ domestic partners they they do to the married spouses of their workers. The mayor, Willie L. Brown Jr., has said he would support such a bill.