Regarding gay marriage/civil unions, I do not believe in Almost Equal Substitute, at least not from any democratic country that practices rule by law and strives to ensure separation of Church and State. Either give same-sex couple full marriage rights or stop calling yourself a free-world democracy and start being truthful and saying you are a theocratic democracy, because that is the real problem - church and presonal religions beliefs completely divorced from any objective view or analysis on human rights and equality which keeps some countries from being able to make the legislative leap into the 21st century of a REALITY of human and equal rights in their democratic countries. Fortunately, Spain is not one of those countries as it has given FULL marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Maybe the true issue is terminology? Maybe if all of the democratic countries of the free world did the following, it wouldn't be so hard for "conservatives" to accept the idea of same-sex partnerships.
1. Make a true separation between Church and State. Pass a law that converts the word "marriage" for any and all into "civil union" across the board even for all those who are currently married.
2. Clarify legislation that the word "marriage" can only be used as a term for any sort of intsitutionalised personal relationship among culturual and/or religious groups.
3. Then the State extends "civil union" rights which married couples have to any and all couples that choose to engange in a "civil union" without worrying about having to create an almost equal substitue and leave marriage to be something done in religious groups along with baptisms and first communions and bar mitzvahs.

The solution is simple once one finds a way to truly get religious convictions out of the democratic government picture.