Is polyamory a sexual orientation? Legal protections might depend on making it one.

In case you hadn’t noticed, polyamory is all the rage right now. She explains that while the legal changes happening at a local level are an important step in the right direction, there are limits to how much they’re impacting polyamorous people’s lives nationally: “The changes in Somerville, for example, only apply to city employees. Dr. Heath Schechinger, co-founder of the Modern Family Institute and the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, has found in his research that polyamorous and nonmonogamous relationships have benefits far beyond the sexual. So, if we were to apply this same approach to a relationship style, like polyamory, we’d have to say that it was fixed and immutable.” The problem, then, is that because many polyamorous people have had monogamous relationships in the past, it’s possible for the state to look at this and assert that their polyamory must be a choice, rather than a fixed characteristic. Related From Slate Three Psychics Told Me to Get Divorced, So I Did Although there may be quite a way to go until the law protects polyamorous people’s rights across the whole of the U.S., the combination of greater visibility, companies wanting to encourage employees to bring their true selves to the workplace, and replicable local policies being taken up in more and more places may be paving the way for exciting change.