Joseph Muscat last Friday said he was in favour of gay marriage but, not so long ago, when he was still Opposition Leader, he had been adamant that the term marriage could not be used for gays, but only for a union between a man and a woman.

What he said last Friday during an activity organised by the Labour Party appeared to have been a way to divert attention away from the Panamagate scandal that has hit the Labour government hard. Answering a question that had all the imprints of steering public conversation to a new topic, Dr Muscat said that he is totally in favour of gay marriage and wants the country to start debating it.

But his statement on Friday contrasts sharply with the position held by Dr Muscat in the years when he was Opposition Leader.

On Friday he said that he has never been against gay marriage, but facts show otherwise.

On at least two occasions, Dr Muscat vehemently resisted the idea of introducing gay marriage, firmly believing that he understood the term marriage to refer only to one between a man and a woman.

And he said this on Malta’s most popular programme Xarabank, as can be seen in the footage accompanying this story.

On 13 June, 2008, a few days after he was elected Labour Party leader, Dr Muscat said he did not believe in marriage between people of the same sex. “It is not natural,” he said, and when pressed by presenter Peppi Azzopardi what he meant by “not natural”, Dr Muscat said “it is not natural to use the term marriage” for a union between people of the same sex. “For me,” he added, “the term marriage is for (a union) between a man and a woman”.

Three years later, on 17 June 2011, again on Xarabank, he had said that “love me or hate me, the term marriage is only for a union between man and woman”.

It is clear that Joseph Muscat has changed his mind on the subject, given what he said last Friday. His statement has angered parts of the gay community as they believe they are being used as a political pawn in Muscat’s game. Now they know that Dr Muscat was not always in favour of gay marriage, and so the interpretation that last Friday he was simply trying to steer public debate away from Panamagate grows stronger.