When you look at all, and I mean all, of the Labour Party's and the government's propaganda on same-sex unions, you will notice the following.

You won't see the words 'same-sex marriage' or even 'same-sex civil unions' anywhere anymore. The words they are using are 'civil rights' (drittijiet civili). Well, civil rights are way wider than same-sex marriage and everybody, not just gay people, is involved. 'Drittijiet civili' sugar-coats the bald fact of marriage between two men or two women, because lots of Labour supporters (and others) just can’t stomach the idea. And it’s useless asking the soldiers of steel to send Alfred Sant to Brussels just because Joseph Muscat made it possible for Mary to marry Grace.

Also, the Labour Party - that long-time violator of human rights and silencer of freedom of expression and association - is now clearly intending to sell itself, on the basis of this single law, as Malta's very own civil rights movement. The presence of Martin Luther King in its Freedom Day biopic was the first clue.

Lesbians feature nowhere in Labour’s campaign. This annoys me, because it really is quite tiresome the way everything in this country has got to be dominated by men as the default position, while women get shoved to the side unless they need to be brought out for window-dressing or tokenism. The Labour Party tolerates Gabi Calleja because she leads the LGBT lobby and so it has no choice, but the prime minister is photographed with her as little as possible and is always very stiff and awkward around her. True, she is a reserved woman and probably averse to the idea of bear-hugging the prime minister, something Ray Calleja is quite happy to do, but that’s not the real reason.

The real reason is that Labour doesn’t really like lesbians, even though lots and lots of lesbians now really like Labour. Lesbians do not serve Labour’s Berlusconi ethic because with remarkably few exceptions they are not eye candy. Middle-aged gay men are not eye candy either, and feature only if they are useful in another way – say, if they are prominent on stage, screen or in the arts, or well known in some other way, and can be used as scalps rather than as interior decoration.

 

So the prime minister is photographed with no lesbians other than the leader of the LGBT lobby who, most regrettably in the eyes of Labour’s image-makers, is not a man in his late 20s with long eyelashes, threaded brows and a desire to be David Gandy. Sports mistress and traffic warden clones in army camouflage just don’t cut it, and make no mistake, this is about aesthetics as well as male chauvinism. If the Labour Party could find itself a couple of Super One Barbies who prefer women, it would have them wrapped round each other on every billboard in town...for the straight male vote.

Helena Dalli, the minister who deals with this portfolio, isn’t photographed with any lesbians either. Even though she is a woman and in charge of what they are calling Civil Rights, she has apparently not noticed the dearth of lesbians in her government’s propaganda messages, or doesn’t care because she prefers to be photographed with gay men.

There were plenty of lesbians celebrating on Palace Square when the vote was out, but they got in by stealth, so to speak. Labour would have much preferred it if the square were carpeted only in aesthetic young men with some older types like Ray Calleja, Kenneth Zammit Tabona and Felix Busuttil thrown in for ballast, rather than all those middle-aged women. The pretty ones who aren’t given to amusing outfits must have stayed home to watch it on television.

In all the Labour propaganda about ‘civil rights’, what you get is two men in their 20s making bug-eyes at each other. Two women feature nowhere, especially not if they look like your average real lesbian. The young men, however, are a different matter, because they fit into the same mould as the young women Labour selects carefully to front its outfit. Like those women, they are invariably waxed, polished, overly groomed and a little bit camp. This is a double-chauvinism whammy (or is it triple?): lesbians are not allowed because they don’t generally fit into the Canale Cinque mould; straight women are allowed only if they fit into that mould; and gay men are allowed only if they are as close to that mould as possible. Gay men are there in the propaganda because they’re men, but at the same time it’s only if they’re pretty. Cyrus Engerer, you will have gathered, is not interior decoration but a scalp.

You’ll also have noticed that for all the fuss about same-sex adoption, none of those young gay men in the propaganda are shown carrying a baby, let alone a baby from Eritrea. When it comes down to messaging the general public, reality bites hard. Labour knows that its soldiers of steel, for instance, don’t want to be messaged with anything like that, that they might even be quite cross about it. Two women with a baby would have been a little easier on the mind and psyche, but then there’s the problem of...well, anyway, see above. Now I’m off to brew a cup of positive energy, and plug myself into the nearest socket to charge my vote.