In advanced democracies, any politician who drapes himself in the national flag is rightly viewed with some suspicion as somebody content to fall back on cheap votes to earn him populist attention. What then does one make of the politician who wraps himself self-righteously in the mantle of God, or even Our Lady of Sorrows, as a means of justifying his position on divorce?

That he is bereft of solid arguments to counter the need to introduce the legal remedy for failed marriages? That he lacks judgement? That he is simply following the example of President Ahmadinejad of Iran? That he does not know about the separation of Church and State in a parliamentary democracy? The answer is perhaps all or some of these things.

I was surprised that Dr Tonio Fenech, our Minister of Finance, once a work colleague, who seemed not unintelligent, should have written in this newspaper on 27 April, asserting that “The Divorce Debate Cannot be Divorced from Faith”.

My first reaction was: how, in a liberal, secular democracy, could someone, apparently regarded as a future leader of the Nationalist Party, be so deluded as to state that “God has a say in the morals of this world, of this country, of our families, as individuals and when we break God’s order of things, we bring disorder and pain upon ourselves. The secular world wants to put God in a closet, while it keeps doing its own thing. This is what the pro-divorce movement wants to do”… and so on, too embarrassing to repeat here.

His religion is of course a matter of private conviction. But it should not be a basis for the enactment in Parliament of laws, which apply to everyone. What is of fundamental importance in a pluralist democracy (as opposed to a theocracy) is that the distinction is maintained between the right of individuals to have religiously-based convictions, and the right of others not to have those religiously-based convictions imposed upon them. This distinction, crucial in a mature liberal democracy, is the basis for the separation of Church and State.

The powerful leader in this newspaper, alongside Tonio Fenech’s article, utterly demolished the theocratic line he had adopted. He is so blinded by his religious dogma that had he been alive in 1632 he would have supported the papacy against Galileo.

His simplistic moral view is that “God has given us a manual to make the best use of our life, the Bible. If, like when in the case of a car, we go against the manual’s directions and rather than petrol, we add diesel, at some point the car will break down. You’re still free to add diesel instead of petrol, however the damage would have been made. Same with life, God will not stop you from doing your own way, but there are consequences that are harmful to ourselves, to those we love and to the society we live in”. Even allowing for the garbled syntax, were this subject not so serious, his position would be laughable.

I won’t pile on the agony by quoting from a most amusing article in The Sunday Times of 8 May entitled “From Minister to Monsignor”, which rightly mocked not only the Christian fundamentalist stance Tonio Fenech has adopted, but also his downright hypocrisy.

Nor will I try to reconcile the holier-than-thou stance he adopts with the position he and his Cabinet colleagues take on introducing a cohabitation law in Malta, when the Church declares that cohabitation amounts to adultery and offends God’s Seventh Commandment. What moral and intellectual contortions is he prepared to make? How does he square his clearly flexible conscience – when he is patently adopting a so-called faith-based position on divorce?

As an elected Member of Parliament and a Minister, Tonio Fenech – and others in Parliament who are of like mind on divorce – needs to be reminded of his duties and responsibilities in a secular, pluralistic, liberal parliamentary democracy to all citizens in Malta. It may surprise him to learn that as our representative in Parliament, he operates in a secular democracy − not a theocracy – and the sentiments he expressed in his article do not sit well with the separation of Church and State.

In a democracy, the individual’s right, in all consciousness, to choose his or her own domestic and family relationships, and to expect due respect and acknowledgement of those choices from the State, are fundamental. To be free from unequal treatment is a basic civil right. The right to marry is also recognised as a civil liberty, a freedom guaranteed under our Constitution by the courts and the laws of Malta.

Respect for such rights does not run counter to the general interest of the State in supporting marriage. It reinforces it. The State’s interest in marriage – whether civil or ecclesiastical − is as a social institution, a relationship that performs certain important social and economic functions. It is the duty of the State, through our representatives in Parliament, to weigh up the issues on the basis of the interests of the community as a whole, and not simply on the basis of private religious convictions. It is the duty of our legislators to safeguard the rights of all citizens equally, whatever their gender, race, religious beliefs or social standing.

Legislators, when drafting or enacting legislation, have to consider those who are not Catholics, those who do not accept the Catholic Church’s teachings, and those who, in all good conscience, take an informed position which differs from its teachings.

They have a duty to try to give citizens all freedom consistent with the rights of others. Good legislators are there to enact legislation that will benefit society as a whole. They have a duty to ease the human suffering caused by marital breakdown and have been given the capacity by those who elect them to office to do this.

Their ultimate concern and responsibility should be for the well being of all the individuals in society and the good governance of all citizens in a way which is reasonable, just and beneficial for society as a whole, recognising that this involves hard choices and imperfect answers. In selecting the best way forward, legislators must recognise that things are never black and white. They have often to search for the right shade of grey in order to promote the greater good.

The freedom to marry again after a legal separation is an intrinsic part of the civil rights and liberties characteristic of a well-ordered democratic and pluralist society. The introduction of the civil dissolution of marriage is now a needed and over-due reform that legislators who have the well being of society at heart should hasten to enact.

We the people have the right and responsibility to remind those of our legislators – like Tonio Fenech and others on the Religious Right of the Nationalist Party – about their law-making responsibilities in a liberal, pluralist democracy. The referendum on 28 May is our opportunity to send a clear message that the days when the Maltese Church could dictate that the people could only have ecclesiastical dissolution (called ‘annulment’), and not also civil dissolution of their marriage, are past.