On Gay Marriage Legislation

It is quite typical for the P.L. not to consult the opposition, and the P.N. MP David Agius is right to resist this sense of self entitlement that followed their enormous victory. Yet, I disagree with the way in which we are conflating culture with legislation. If it is in our culture to refer to our mother as our mother, and our father as our father, legislation will not wipe this culture out of our discourse i.e. it takes much more than legislation to wipe out certain words from our vocabulary. I believe that removing such terms will cater for those same sex couples that need to define their roles to their children and the rest of society (it is more about practicality than anything else). With this I will add that it is important that children are educated about this new social reality, so that we may avoid discrimination and bullying in schools, and promote more inclusion in Maltese society.

I also believe that David Agius's way of doing politics is exemplary and constructive, as it accepts the fact that gay marriage was included in the P.N.'s electoral programme. In my previous contribution to this blog, I argued that ethical issues should be subjected to a free vote. I am also adding to this that this should become part of the party statute. Yet, it is as important for pledges to be honoured, if the P.N. is to be taken seriously. It is for this reason that I cannot understand how certain M.P.s and former M.P.s are resisting the legislation of gay marriage. Tonio Fenech went as far as to argue that if the P.N. votes for gay marriages, more votes will be lost for the P.N. It is strange that Fenech is not realizing that what brought the P.N. to the current situation are people like him, when he was a government M.P. and after, when he resisted divorce and foolishly brought in the Virgin Mary into the argument, or when he hindered his own party from voting with the government on civil union. That's what made the P.N. lose votes, not it becoming a party for the people as the incumbent leadership worked so hard to achieve. It was this sense of self-righteousness of people of his sort that did not allow those in the party who disagreed with party stand not to voice their opinion in the pre-2013 P.N. government. 

I will repeat that I am for a free vote when it comes to ethical issues. Yet, some who speak of a free vote today were not that in favour of it when their kind of politics were dominating the P.N. i.e. pre-2013.