Abstract

The article reflects on marriage equality by using as its starting point the arguments that Gianfrancesco Zanetti develops in the book "L'orientamento sessuale: Cinque domande tra diritto e filosofia" (Sexual orientation: Five questions in philosophy and law). It discusses the general theoretical issues linked to the US Supreme Court decision in "Obergefell v. Hodges", with an emphasis on the resulting partial reframing of marriage law, dismantling some of the traditional legal elements of marriage as a legal act (where "traditional" is meant in the sense of tracing back to ancient canon law). The author asks in the end whether, in following through on the recognition that all sexual orientations are valuable, we should see the need to protect not only equal marriage but also plural marriage, recognizing a right to freely decide to live one's sexuality within plural and basically stable relationships.