diff --git a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/mime_type.rb b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/mime_type.rb
index ec9d2eea6d..16e3ffc9c1 100644
--- a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/mime_type.rb
+++ b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/mime_type.rb
@@ -145,7 +145,10 @@ module Mime
     end
     
     def ==(mime_type)
-      (@synonyms + [ self ]).any? { |synonym| synonym.to_s == mime_type.to_s } if mime_type
+      return false unless mime_type
+      (@synonyms + [ self ]).any? do |synonym| 
+        synonym.to_s == mime_type.to_s || synonym.to_sym == mime_type.to_sym 
+      end
     end
     
     private
diff --git a/actionpack/test/controller/mime_type_test.rb b/actionpack/test/controller/mime_type_test.rb
index 5f29393fce..991ac04f62 100644
--- a/actionpack/test/controller/mime_type_test.rb
+++ b/actionpack/test/controller/mime_type_test.rb
@@ -39,6 +39,11 @@ class MimeTypeTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     Mime.module_eval { remove_const :GIF if const_defined?(:GIF) }
   end
   
+  def test_type_should_be_equal_to_symbol
+    assert_equal Mime::HTML, 'application/xhtml+xml'
+    assert_equal Mime::HTML, :html
+  end
+
   def test_type_convenience_methods
     types = [:html, :xml, :png, :pdf, :yaml, :url_encoded_form]
     types.each do |type|