Humans have become, for lack of better term, pussies. There are very few people that will openly speak their minds because most people don't want to offend anyone. But our species is so diverse that no matter what you say, somebody will be offended by it. (Except for certain known facts, I suppose.)

The term "partner" has replaced "husband/wife" because newspapers don't want their articles to have a hint of homosexualism or heterosexualism in them. If they say "Jerry's partner loves him very much," they are neutral. But if they say "Jerry's wife...," some homosexual activists (I don't know why they insist on doing this) may be offended because the newspaper only reports on heterosexual couples. Of course, this goes the other way as well.

Whenever an article uses the word partner, I can't imagine the sexual orientation of the couple is even a consideration. If you understand that hetero/homosexual couple are exactly the same in almost every regard, there is little reason for clarification. The reason to change it now is due to political correctness that seems to be infiltrating our language. This touches on the same-sex marriage debate, and while I don't want to go into it, I think the term partner adequately avoids the debate so as to allow the writer of the article to get their point across without receiving heat from watchdog civilians willing to make a citizen's arrest every time they see a nip-slip on television.

Well the term partner implies all couplings excluding one night stands therefore, a certain level of commitment. This commitment is adequate to describe a coupling such as institutional marriage or a long term non-institutionalized union. As I understand it your concern is that one party will take issue no matter what therefore the goal becomes to establish a term that will suit both parties. Since this is clearily impossible given the same sex marriage debate, I propose the best solution is the term partner as it encompases all of the above, but simply doesn't do enough justice to the institution of marriage. The alternative completely exempts one side.

P.s. Youll need to excuse my rambling, I'm responding from my iphone while drunken bowling. :)

Apparently it is the politically correct thing to do... I'm to agree with the pussy comment.

Personally I don't care what they put. Why are you so interested if they like the same sex anyway. It's there personal business and we have no right to stick are noses into it. It just an article, it's not as if those two paragraphs depend on our life. Not to mention you can get plenty of other information from the article, maybe even hints that show they are attracted to the same sex. But really what does it matter what gender their attracted to?

I think that both gay and straight people are overly sensative about such things, about appearances. I think that people should quit bitchin' over the little things and think about the real issues, ones that have to deal with life and death, not indulging idiotic people.