Here's the deal: I'm all for equal rights, but I can understand why people don't want marriage and gay partnerships to be labeled equivalent. Western marriage has religious roots, so it's only fitting that it remains religious. But because the United States is constitutionally required to separate church and state (and rightly so), heterosexual couples cannot be given something that homosexual couples are denied. The best solution is to give homosexual couples equal-benefit civil unions. Everybody wins, unless of course you're a religious fundamentalist douchebag or a self-righteous liberal asshole.