Abstract

The study sets out to analyse Sentence No. 138 of 2010 on homosexual unions from the standpoint of the reasoning techniques that the Constitutional Court used to justify its decision. The analysis performed leads to believing that the fundamental decision made by the Court is contained in the assertion holding that «homosexual unions cannot be considered akin to marriage». The work sets itself the objective of testing whether the line of reasoning developed by the Court in its logical path is really useful for the purpose of upholding such assertion: if on a first reading of the text it may appear that the pillar that upholds the decision according to which «homosexual unions cannot be considered akin to marriage» is the original argument, actually this assertion seems to stand on another argument that the Court dares not make explicit, but that can be glimpsed through a series of traces disseminated in its justification: the argument of the impotent legislator - impotent to unhinge tradition lying dormant from time immemorial.