These are certainly interesting times in which we are living here in Malta. In terms of civil rights, the country is being propelled into the 21st century and it is quickly making up for lost time.
From the introduction of divorce to a revision of the Church-State concordat on marriage annulments, and from the legislation of transgender rights to the new possibility of the decriminalisation of simple drug possession, the government of the day is in many respects living up to its ‘progressive label’ in an outstanding fashion.
These were all once unthinkable propositions, and now they are either realities or realities in the pipeline. This government, despite the veritable swarm of flies in the ointment when it comes to its questionable public appointments, is performing admirably in the area of civil rights and in so doing it is leading by example.
It has taken civil liberties head on and even when it came to divorce, which was introduced under the previous administration, it should also be noted that the legislation was delivered courtesy of the Labour Party in opposition. Its MP Evarist Bartolo had co-sponsored the bill with then PN MP Jeffery Pullicino Orlando, and had the Labour Party not backed the bill in the way it had, there was no way that it would have seen the light at the end of the parliamentary tunnel given the stiff opposition presented by the government of the time.
These developments have all been huge strides in the right direction – in the direction of the full accordance of civil liberties that Joseph Muscat had promised to implement if and when in power. And now that he is Prime Minister, he is living up to his word. He had promised that under his stewardship of the country, civil liberties will be viewed as fundamental rights rather than as mere concessions, and he is keeping his word.
And although one cannot agree with each and every policy of this government, in the area of civil rights, it is heartening to see that this government is living up to its electoral pledges. As matters stand, one can also be proud to live in these times and to participate in modernizing this country’s civil rights.
Malta appears to at long last be coming out of the dark woods it had inhabited for the last decades when it comes to the rights of homosexual and transgender rights in particular, rights for which this newspaper has advocated for a long time now, just as it had advocated for the introduction of divorce legislation.
The country, as far as the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people are concerned, has been a cultural backwater and this complete change of tack is moving the country far upstream as far as civil liberties as a whole are concerned.
The civil union bill is yet another stride in the right direction, but there will always be the proponents and opponents to any policy, especially policies that endow minority groups with the rights that they have always been entitled to but have never had.
But when it comes to ‘gay marriage’, which the legislation effectively is in all but name, one must not make the mistake of equating civil unions to anything but civil marriages – just as in the case of divorce legislation, we are not speaking of Church marriages at all.
It seems that either Maltese society has matured by leaps and bounds since the great divorce debate, a watershed moment, or perhaps Maltese society is by and large more accepting of civil unions than it was of the introduction of divorce. Even the Church, although it is standing its ground on ‘gay marriage’, has now issued an apology for the ways in which it had dealt with homosexuals over the decades.
With most of society and the political parties apparently on board, the main thorn in the side of this legislation, however, appears to be the possibility of gay couples in a civil union to apply to adopt children. But, in reality, one must acknowledge that an individual partner in a gay relationship can do this anyway, without that relationship being formalised as such.
If children are to be bullied at school because they live in a household headed by a same sex couple, will they not be bullied all the same? Will they be bullied more simply because they are listed on paper as being in a civil union? These and many other questions will be raised once the parliamentary debate on the bill begins in earnest, and we will reserve judgement at least until then.
These civil rights issues do not boil down to questions of tolerance; they are issues that have needed addressing for long time now. They are civil rights that absolutely need to be given to citizens of this country who have been deprived of their rights for far too long now.
The government so far is doing just what it has promised along these lines and it is doing so quickly.