STOCKHOLM -- Nearly three quarters of Swedes are in favor of allowing homosexuals to wed, according to a poll published by the Svenska Dagbladet daily on Monday.

Seventy-one percent of the 1,000 people questioned in the Sifo Institute poll last week said gay people should be permitted to marry.

"This survey shows that a large majority of Swedes feel homosexual couples should be treated on an equal footing" with heterosexuals, Soeren Juvas, the head of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, told Agence France-Presse.

Sweden has since 1995 allowed gays and lesbians the right to civil unions, granting them the same legal status as married couples.

But gay and lesbian organizations have long been pushing for the last distinction between heterosexual marriages and homosexual unions to be eliminated.

Sweden's current law, dating back to 1987, defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, but the center-right government is preparing new draft legislation that would remove any reference to gender.

Sweden's Lutheran Church, which has been separated from the state since 2000, began last year offering religious blessings to gay couples, but has said it wants the word "marriage" to be reserved for heterosexual unions.