San Francisco. (BP) Ten thousand U.S. companies doing business with The City must provide same-sex couples with health insurance and other benefits, according to a new San Francisco city ordinance scheduled to go into effect in approximately six months. In the meantime, city supervisors are working out details for companies that comply.

Allowing domestic partners equal rights with heterosexually married partners has noticeably riled certain business and religious groups, including United Airlines and the Catholic Church. But negotiations have led to minor compromises in both cases. United Airlines, after prolonged resistance, now plans to begin dispensing same-sex benefits in 1999 as it does already in Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, nations requiring such benefits by law.

Dennis Wyss, spokesman for the Bank of America, the nation's third largest bank, says that his company doesn't think its good public policy for the city the tie its hands in the way this ordinance mandates. "We think San Francisco taxpayers get the highest quality services for their money when the city keeps its options open," he stated. Bank of America management has previously considered such policy but has not yet instituted one.

Tom Ammiano, former school teacher, popular comedian, and now a city supervisor who co-authored the anti-discrimination measure, notes that The Gap, Levi Strauss and the Walt Disney company have such policies already firmly in place. "If its good enough for Mickey Mouse, it's good enough for San Francisco," he quipped.

Carol Piasente, spokeswoman for the nearly 2,000 member San Francisco Chamber of Commerce thinks the ordinance is a bad idea. It puts an unfair burden, she said, on businesses that deal with the city. She says the ordinance imposes "costs on local companies that makes them not competitive in the bigger marketplace."

United Airlines spokeswoman, Mary Jo Holland, described her surprise of hearing of the new ordinance. United, seeking a 25-year aircraft maintenance and kitchen lease at the airport, was told that its lease could be put in jeopardy. "We're disappointed," Holland said, and "we're surprised at how they've handled it. We had no indication that the lease was going to be held up."

Ammiano explains San Francisco fathers need some indication from United that any company asking a 25-year lease will somehow try to comply with the new law. "We have a lot of flexibility," he told reporters. This flexibility has already led quickly to capitulation by United, and to the rescinding of a suit threatened by Roman Catholic Archbishop Levada.