We should have reached a point where being LGBTIQ is a statement of fact, and engenders no shame or opprobrium.  Evolved minds should have reached that point by now.  Of course, the poor shall be always with us, and there will be those who scoff, jeer, and make other people’s lives miserable.  Well, the answer to that lies in stringent laws against bullying or ridicule.

But, while I believe that the LGBTIQ community is sizeable, I think fear of belonging still adheres, and the present ‘marriage bill’ debate is indicative.  As it stands, the bill intends to iron out any anomalies resulting from different lifestyles, giving the impression that it is wrong to call a spade a spade, and replacing the name by some contrived and contorted phrase beginning with the words ‘an implement made of metal and wood…..’ 

But that is cumbersome and artificial-sounding, and therein lies the problem.  Euphemisms are meant to avoid embarrassment.  Am I to take it that an LGBTIQ person is embarrassed to be identified as LGBTIQ?  Why should a person feel embarrassed because he or she adheres to his or her nature? Why should a person even feel afraid, in this day and age, for Heaven’s sake?

Ironically, by forcing us all to make an impossible act of faith and believe there is no difference in being LGBTIQ, the bill is achieving the opposite of what its drafters intended:  it has generated rancour and unrest.  Moreover, the rancour and unrest is cross-partisan, in spite of attempts at labelling dissenters as being PN partisans.  Just as it is rather craven to deny difference, it is quite short-sighted to simplify the matter by political branding, and indeed the attempt has already failed, because positions on it are far from being generated by mere political allegiance.

It is a fig-leaf bill born of the fears of some people who legitimately wish to follow their nature, but are still mistrustful of social welcome for their position.  Rather than being an equalising bill, it is a defensive one.  It smells of fear, not of assertion.  I have never renounced my nationality in the company of foreigners.  In fact I am proud to be different.

If it is wrong to make overt legal reference to LGBTIQ status, the implication is that expressing the fact that it exists might have negative repercussions.  But no-one can just make a statement like that without qualifying it, and if we qualify it by saying ‘Maltese society has not yet reached the stage where we can safely claim we are LGBTIQ’, then I am sorry, but the bill was presented before its proper time, and we are simply straining to be modern without actually being so.  In other words, we are living a lie, and forcing an issue.

But that is not where the story ends.  Matrimony, patrimony and maternity lie at the heart of society, and the legal system, almost in its entirety, is in some way connected to them. The laws of inheritance, the laws of commerce, even criminal law, through  parricide and matricide, make references to them.  They are a mainstay of notarial activity.  So just changing the terms for paternity and maternity within the context of the marital union is not self-exhaustive.  A thorough and complete overhaul of a huge number of laws will be necessary if the bill goes through as it is, to make them conform to it, because the bill goes for the jugular.  What a horrendous waste of Parliamentary time and effort that might entail!  And what unimaginable complications and conflicts such an exercise could create!

I feel it is the LGBTIQ community itself which should object to the fuzzy language intended to hide the reality about oneself.  If you are gay, you are gay, and there’s an end to it, and you should have proper laws safeguarding that by acknowledging your difference, not by pretending the differences don’t exist.  You can’t have the toast buttered on both sides.  You can’t have the courage to come out and then run to the Government and say ‘Please don’t let them say I’m different!’.   But if I am to be honest, I would say, yes, that is what is happening.  That’s where the fig-leaf comes handy, but it’s only handy for some.