You don’t play the fool by calling a national referendum to “let the people decide” on the ways and means of helping a minority of citizens with special needs. You just legislate resolutely and do it to deserved general acclaim. At least this is how most democratic governments that followed seemingly endless European wars, right-wing dictatorships and revolutions have done ever since.

Very much the same yardstick has to be used with regard to the granting of rights to other minorities, including taxpaying, law-abiding citizens with different sexual orientations. You don’t go to the so-called majority to seek their approval for granting the rights to this minority; a just and socially aware government would simply legislate and help reduce the burden that society continues to irrationally impose on them.

Sadly, many people think that the holding of a referendum, which is only a subjective exercise anyway (vide the joke of referenda held in Australia on the introduction of a Republican constitution), is the end-to-it-all solution, even when it comes to ethical and moral issues, but minorities have inalienable rights which no majority has the right to deny them by a simple, possibly tainted, count of numbers.

Referenda may be OK to settle political issues such as those we have had in the past regarding the integration, independence and European Union membership issues that, not surprisingly, had the nation hopelessly divided, with the debate on their interpretation still going on unabated among politicians and historians alike. But when the referendum weapon is used by politicians to either soothe their conscience or else to slip out of an embarrassing situation, the red light goes on – blindingly.

Prime Minister Gonzi is caught in such a quandary. He may be personally against the belated introduction of divorce in Malta, but is, no doubt, also fully aware of its need as we watch the fabric of Maltese society continue to tear and come apart. We need to fix that hole. Not only those who could afford it have been away to foreign courts to come back with a document that the Maltese authorities cannot refuse to accept, but there are also, now, thousands of Maltese couples who still had to fork out large sums of money to obtain the so-called legal separation and/or annulment from the Maltese civil and Church systems. The rest just have to live in the pain of oblivion.

Gonzi has been caught with his pants down by none other than his own enfant terrible, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. The party system has been immediately put in motion to stop the water from gushing in, but it is, really, a battle against time. So what better than piping out phrases and arguments pegged to worn-out slogans about “consultation with the people”, “mandates” and “national debates”?

Had not Pullicino Orlando been true to his conviction, the issue would not have been raised at all. Conservative attitudes are based on the burying of heads in the sand, always in the hope of helping people to forget or shelve the problems they have.

In contrast, the Labour Opposition under Joseph Muscat has at least been given some direction. Muscat has made clear his own personal view on divorce as a civil right, but his sense of fairness and respect towards everyone else has prompted him into declaring that he would give his MPs a free vote, if and when Parliament has to decide about the issue.

Instead of doing the same and showing some real faith in his team of embattled parliamentarians, Gonzi seems set once again at upsetting JPO’s (and probably some others’) applecart by playing for time. There should be no doubt that his strategy consultants have been counselling a long drawn out campaign that would stretch right up to the eve of the next general election in the hope that, with inevitable Church and churchmen support (one has already resorted to a ludicrous sixties-style billboard!), the divorce referendum would serve as an alienating springboard when people eventually go to the polls to vote for the next government.

A similar strategy was followed by Fenech Adami, with obvious success, when an EU membership referendum was held on the eve of the 2003 general election. But that is where the similarities end.

Here Gonzi is facing an internal battle, an issue instigated and refuelled by one (and probably more) of his own. The issue is not a national issue, but a question that concerns a minority of citizens in the country who need legal and social protection and who can no longer be denied the right that all the other Christian and non-Christian citizens of the European Union enjoy.

The “mandate” argument too is highly debatable. The government, any government, is bound to ensure that what it promised during an election campaign is seen to and done. True, this government already has a horrible record when it comes to keeping promises, but that does not exonerate it from the duty to rectify problems that crop up or are aggravated during a given legislature, as is sadly happening to so many Maltese marriages.

Conversely, a government cannot be accused of having done more than it promised! If only governments, of whichever colour and creed, would do so, people would be much less cynical when it comes to discussing politicians and their worth. How can one accuse a government that has gone out of its way to heal a social wound despite not having “a mandate”?

National tragedies and emergencies occur in every nation’s history, and on each and every occasion no decent government ever felt the need to assess whether it had or not “a mandate” to intervene and provide the precious help that was needed. Some did it successfully, as in the case of the Berlusconi government’s initial response to the horrific earthquake that hit L’Aquila and its district, and some failed miserably, as in the case of the George W. Bush administration and the New Orleans floods.

Politicians can no longer hide the fact that marriage, as we have always known it in Malta, is on the rocks. No one takes any pleasure out of this realisation, but it is the bitter truth. A broken marriage is not OK if the couple obtain an annulment from the Church or legal separation, just as much as it is not OK if it can be “resolved” by divorce. Unlike the previous two “solutions”, however, divorce simply helps the victims to rebuild their lives and to hope for some deserved happiness. For happiness please read sexual contentment and equal social recognition.

It is now a national emergency that both the government and the Opposition have to tackle in unison before it gets any worse. Emergencies have no majorities but minorities only – minorities in need.

So stop the crap and do something about it. As the world’s greatest band ever once sang: “I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering, where it will go...”