I watch in consternation as people bicker over same-sex marriage and one Opposition member of parliament, Edwin Vassallo (who else?) says that he will vote against the law in defiance of the party whip. Voting against the whip is a grave breach of parliamentary discipline under the Westminster system, so it would be fascinating to know how he will be brought to order by the party bosses. Something tells me he won’t be brought to order at all. The whip, David Agius, is not much better despite being the Opposition’s spokesman for civil liberties. He seems terribly concerned that if the law goes through, we will no longer be allowed to celebrate Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, but will be reduced only to Parents’ Day, two words that still strike the terror of tedium into my heart 13 years after my last child left school.

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Why consternation? Well, it’s simple. Their objection to same-sex marriage stems largely from their religious convictions. Those religious convictions tell them that the only true marriage is a ceremony performed by a Roman Catholic priest in a Roman Catholic church, and that nothing else counts. Civil marriage is not marriage, they believe or were told to believe, and it therefore follows that people who are not married by the Roman Catholic rite, but only civilly, are not married at all in the eyes of God though they will have to concede that they have a contract in the eyes of the state.

So why are they upset? This is exactly what foxes me: if people like Edwin Vassallo don’t believe that civil marriage is marriage, then it follows that they have no reason to be upset if something they don’t believe exists takes place between two people of the same sex. If a man and a woman who marry civilly are not married at all in Mr Vassallo’s eyes, then nor are a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Now if the Roman Catholic Church were suddenly to declare that men may marry men and women may marry women in church, then I could understand Mr Vassallo and others like him becoming overwrought. But as it is, they don’t believe in civil marriage between a man and a woman, so why now do they suddenly object to civil marriage between a woman and another woman?

It’s the failure of logic that bothers me more than anything else.

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The government has timed this bill perfectly to upset an Opposition that is under heavy stress already. So of course, some people in the Opposition, or in the Nationalist Party itself, are going to oblige the government by tearing themselves apart with anger. Honestly, how idiotic they are, playing right into the Prime Minister’s hands while the Prime Minister gloats at their tunnel vision.

The irony is that it was Joseph Muscat himself who said in a television interview, only a few months before he became prime minister, that he thinks marriage is something that should only take place between a man and a woman, though he is fine with civil unions. Now even he seems to have understood that it is mainly a matter of semantics, and has seen that there are points to be scored by going ahead with it. Meanwhile, those in his own party who object most thoroughly (and of course there are several individuals who do) have the good sense to keep quiet about it. But people like Mr Vassallo think it's a brilliant idea to hole the ship while saving what he clearly thinks of as his conscience.

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Some of the most ridiculous remarks I have read about this unfortunate business are by those who seem firmly convinced that when the law goes through, their children will no longer be allowed to call them ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’, and will be obliged to call them – by whom, the police? – ‘parent’ instead. You just have to laugh. You have women posting pictures of themselves with their children on Facebook and saying “These are my children!!!!!! I am their mummy!!!!” It’s enough to make a person weep at the level of what passes for adult debate on these islands. Maltese adults? Mainly just children with a hunger for money that surpasses anything they could possibly need to buy sweets.

If the government enacts a law that makes it mandatory for every Maltese person above the age of 18 to spend three years fending for themselves alone in a foreign city – sort of like obligatory military service, but with an actual purpose that has nothing to do with patriotism – then I might actually be constrained to write a few words of praise. But gosh, imagine how upset everybody would be then: “They’re exiling my babies!!!!????? Why should they go away when we are so lucky that we live in such a gem?????!!!!!!”

I had best point out that I am only making a point here, that I don’t believe in mandatory anything of the sort. But rampant infantilisation brought on by never having had to fend for yourself, and never being exposed to different ways of life and real adult behaviour, is a major part of the root cause of the problem. And it’s the reason why members of parliament, on both sides of the House, so often sound like village elders and not European politicians in a national assembly.

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