An analysis of comparative legislative racionality: Spain (2005) and Peru (2014) about the debate around the civil union and same-sex marriage

Abstract

This article studies the parliamentary debate over the approval of a legislative change on the Spanish Civil Code, which gave permission to Same-Sex marriages since 2005. The author tries to approach to Congress debates as complex processes, in which different levels of rationality (as of irrationality) are intersperse in the argumentations of senators and deputies.
In order to clarify this confounding scenario, the tools of ‘legisprudential studies’ or legislative rationality are of utmost importance, because they allow us to group the reasons in typologies, and to analyze possible counter-arguments or voids relating to supporting evidence. That is why the approach of this work, in relation to the substance of the matter, is neutral and rather points to demonstrate the immense methodological potential of legislative rationality models, and how these could contribute to illuminate the ongoing discussion on our country.