They can call it marraige,civil pertnership or horse s£^$ if they want as long as I have equal rights.I don't care if the bloke next door wants to sign a civil partnership with his bird.I am glad he can.If civil partnerships were only for gays then we would be taking away from that bloke the same rights we have been fighting for.I am glad its across the board for everyone.To me thats the way it should be.

I agree with you in principle, englishsunflower.
However, the reality is that rarely are such arrangements equal. We have civil unions in the state I live, but they are HARDLY equal to marriage. Most of the advantages come with DIVORCE from a civil union (child support, alimony when applicable, child custody, property distribution, etc.). We are granted inheritance rights - but we still get socked with the huge FEDERAL inheritance tax.
Separate but equal, though separate, is rarely equal.

Your right that is not equal........I have a hard time keeping up with the laws regarding this matter becouse each state and each country are diffrent.The bad thing is that you have to be a genus to keep up with it all so that kinda leaves a dumb sunflower like me out in the cold. I do know that in the UK it is equal.I don't believe that I will see in my lifetime that this whole country will have the same rights.To much interfighting between the states and a Gov that will not say enough is enough and make a stand on the side if civil rights.As I have posted in another thread I grew up durning the civil rights movement and from what I am seeing now its just come full circle again.I just wonder how many people will have to die this time for the civil rights that they were suppose to have been born with.This is just the tip of the iceburg.

I get the impression that sex isn't nearly the political issue in other nations that it is here in the U.S.

That's true. But homosexual people have quite a wide range of treatments depending on where you look...
You have Uganda where you can be hung for being homosexual in public.

Then you have Sweden where being "gay" is one of the more mild "sexual orientations" that they have deemed "okay"....

That's because we are this bizarre dichotomy of sex-driven merchandising and rampant prudery.

I agree that prudery is rampant in this country, but prudery has no place in the gov. Our gov is suppose to see we ALL have the right to freedom and civil rights as long as it doesn't do harm to others. What can giving us the right to live like everyone elce in this country be harming others?We want make the human race extenct. Everyone want turn gay becouse we have rights.Most gays/lesbians stay to thereselves anyway so we want take over you towns and cities.We want take over you churches and places of worship. (I remember hearing that as a child before the civil rights movement became big.)I lived in a very KKK run county. This is all beyond my little brain I guess.I just know that if you had 4 fingers instead of 5 and they told you you had no rights becouse you were diffrent you would be yelling from the roof tops.This country was founded by people from every nation on this planet.So your ancesters in a lot of those counrties have relised that it does no wrong to give everyone in there country the same rights. Daaaaaaa!

Gay people DO have rights. I don't understand why you are saying that you have "no" rights. There ARE things that people with 4 fingers simply can't do. If a person is born with one eye, there are things that that person simply can't do. Just as a person born gay shouldn't be able to marry the person that their sexual urge directs their romantic feelings toward. But that person CAN marry the opposite gender. Gay people have the same rights as anyone else. It's just that they have a birth abnormality.

If I were in Sweden, I'd be looking at shagging some hot blonde chick and not gay sex.

Tell me about it...Check this out
The Local - Swedish women favour online sex

The Local - Dating Swedish women: logging in and going out

I think I might like Sweden.