All those who might think the whole surreal debate of the past months has been strictly about divorce must be either naïve or over simplistic.

It all boils down to whether we want to live in a confessional or a secular society, as well as whether we are prepared to adapt to the challenges of present-day realities or else continue living in a Church-dominated society where the State has to remain subservient.

It also brought home another harsh reality – that there is a big divide between Maltese Catholics, practicing or not, and the conservative gatekeepers of the Maltese Archdiocese who have every interest in making sure that we retain the status quo.

I have respected all along the Church’s objections to divorce, but I can in no way tolerate the views expressed even by PN stalwarts – including the Prime Minister – that the next predictable step that will follow if the divorce referendum were to be given a favourable response, would be to introduce euthanasia and abortion!

A Maltese friend of mine who has been living in the UK for some years recently mailed me to remark that when he follows the Maltese ‘divorce’ debate on line he is in two minds as to whether he should feel amused or saddened by the goings-on.

Another friend, who has no political agenda, recently told me that he had been cool about the whole debate until the conservative elements in the anti-divorce campaign aroused his anger with their abusive references to The Lord and Our Lady. It’s almost as if all those tilting towards a pro-divorce vote in the referendum are out to gun the latter two, when we were always thought, since our childhood, that JESUS LOVES US ALL.

Another friend remarked wryly that one is mistaken when referring to the forthcoming referendum as a divorce referendum. His thinking went something like this: the overwhelming majority does not want divorce as such. The whole issue is whether or not divorce as a civil right should be extended to all those who might opt to go for it after years of legal separation when their marriage has long been on the rocks.

So basically, we will not be voting as to whether we want divorce or not but rather whether we should be prepared to allow others to exercise such a right solely if they need to or feel the need to do so, for the simple reason that even those whose marriage might have long been beyond repair might still choose to refrain from divorcing after having tried out a previous marriage somewhat unsuccessfully.

This was perhaps the most forceful part of the Fr Charles Vella intervention on BLA AGENDA to which the anti-divorce movement took exception – that while, from the Catholic viewpoint, divorce is considered a menace to the stability of marriage, it does not mean that it is going to wreck marriages. Even more forcefully, the Cana founder predicted that the state will have to come to terms with divorce. If anyone doubts the accuracy of such a statement, one need only look up the Cana Movement founder’s interview in The Times two years back.

The surreal divorce debate of the past few days has also brought to the fore some controversial homophobic arguments, particularly about the need for a cure for homosexuality through a sexual orientation conversion.

When an eminent member of the anti-divorce movement recently tried to pitch for Labour-oriented audiences during the John Bundy chat show on One TV by quoting excerpts from a Dom Mintoff speech of 1983, not only did she quote the man completely out of context but she tried to give the impression that he was anti divorce. Anyone who recalls his statement then – daring by any standards, whatever one might think of the guy – must admire his courage and foresight. All he said was that it must take some courage to actually take the plunge and go for divorce, since it has nothing to do with the joy-ride many are trying to portray it as being.

When a Labour administration of the 1970s decriminalised homosexuality between consenting adults it had no intention of turning the entire islands of Malta and Gozo into gay communities. It did so regardless of whether the main beneficiaries of such a progressive move were in their thousands, hundreds or even tens.

The same applies to its decision to introduce civil marriage on the island.

With this in mind, one cannot but feel frustrated at the mind-boggling attempts of all those campaigners who have tried to create the false impression that once divorce is introduced, people will be queuing up in their thousands to go through it – as if we were that old lady in the hoary old joke who erroneously thought that she was queuing up for free oranges!

Some of the feeble economic arguments that divorce would create a new kind of poverty on the island were evidently meant to alarm people, particularly during these austere times when spending power is at its lowest ebb.

The ultimate below-the-belt remark was one that has circulated in certain Dutrina circles – that if divorce is introduced, the island might find itself lumped with increased taxation, since a number of happily married couples might unwittingly find themselves having to pay new taxes to make good for the financial support needed to sustain divorced couples who might have decided to engage in marriage once again without being able to make ends meet.

Predictably, no one on the anti-divorce front bothered or dared mention that, with the introduction of divorce, there will be fewer single mothers on social benefit and also fewer people dependent on social security or social services.

Objectivity demands that I should salute all those who tried to bring some sanity to the whole debate – including various members of the clergy as well as members of the independent press.

That a number of media people who do not traditionally support the PL came out so bravely, even editorially, in favour of a YES vote in Saturday’s referendum proves two things:

• that the debate really and truly has been above politics, in spite of the PN’s attempts to politicise the issue and muzzle any real free vote, and

• that their open-mindedness annoyed the Nationalist Party so much that in last Sunday’s il-Mument, the newspaper claimed that it was unfair that there was such a strong and overwhelming media bias against the anti-divorce movement.

I have nothing against the members of the latter movement – I know a number of them as eminent professionals in their respective fields. But the fact that some of them have been kept away from the TV screens and the media in general in the final days of the campaign makes it so obvious that even the anti-divorce strategists felt that their image projection and warped thinking on the subject was proving to be too counter-productive and fundamentalist for the whole issue and cause.

I was saddened when Ms Helen D’Amato, a former parliamentary colleague and a person whom I respect personally, chose to misinterpret and misrepresent an article on the issue by John B. Kelly, a leading psychologist, even more so when she was doing so in her capacity as Children’s Commissioner.

It is ironic that throughout the whole debate the anti-divorce movement has virtually left out the whole issue of domestic violence. It only brought it into play by claiming that a person engaged in domestic violence should not even be allowed to divorce as he/she could perpetrate further the violence he or she might have already exercised against his/her former partner in marriage with a new partner.

I was equally saddened by the fact that co-habitation has been merely glossed over by the anti-divorce movement, so much so that it seems they will soon be calling it a day once the referendum is out of the way to make sure that they keep mum while government goes about its ‘business without an electoral mandate’ of introducing co-habitation legislation before the end of this year – as Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici confirmed that he will be doing, in reply to a parliamentary question of mine.

One might be going to the polls – if one chooses to do so – harbouring the wrong impression that all sides involved in the debate were for a free vote. Anyone who argues this way must have surely been duped unwittingly.

Not only does the Prime Minister expect society to remain unchanged to the demands of present day realities by expecting realities to adapt to the long-established norms of society itself, but in a recent special feature on divorce, an exponent of the anti-divorce campaign stated that divorce is not a remedy that only concerns those who would like to divorce, but will also change the concept of marriage for the whole of society by seeing our children grow up in a society which encourages them to take the easy way out when problems crop up, no matter how much heartache they might leave behind them.

Which brings me to my last observation: what would have been the fairest question to be posed? A simple Yes or No for Divorce which would have been tantamount to a blank cheque while opening the floodgates for a Las Vegas-style divorce, or the question as put for responsible divorce?

Common sense dictates that I should not even bother to reply to these two options, since I have enough confidence in the intelligence of the readers of this newspaper.

But suffice it to say that, according to the anti-divorce movement, the referendum’s question is loaded and misleading because it attempts to give a sugar-coating to a law that, in effect, gives the right to a spouse to walk away from marriage for no reason. It even had the cheek to dismiss it as a question that does not limit the number of divorces one can be granted, as well as to argue that it is, in fact, a recipe for social disorder.

Reflecting deeply upon the ‘conclusions’ drawn by the Moviment Zwieg Bla Divorzju should provide sufficient reason why one should vote YES this coming Saturday.

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