The truly unintelligent are never able to see the bigger picture

Published: September 22, 2012 at 4:21pm

Malta Today reports Malta Gay Rights Movement coordinator Gabi Calleja as saying that Labour recognises the need for more equality and urging “the gay community to weigh up its options properly and vote wisely in the forthcoming general election”.

How Ms Calleja made the leap of imagination from Joseph Muscat saying that he recognises the need for more equality to Joseph Muscat actually planning to do something about it is quite beyond me.

I believe they call it wishful thinking.

In terms of what needs to be done to give state recognition to homosexual relationships and to permit homosexual couples to adopt children – and this is what it is all about, because there is nothing else left to deal with – the political parties are at par.

They have exactly the same stance on both. This is ‘No’ and ‘No’. The Labour Party has no policy documents we can look at, so we have to go by the pronouncements of the Labour leader, which are more than clear.

He does not agree with marriage for homosexuals, and he does not agree with allowing homosexual couples to adopt children.

The furthest he will go is some kind of registered union, but definitely not marriage.

He said so. Clearly. Is there scope for wishful thinking here? No, there is not.

Are his pronouncements any different to the Nationalist Party’s stance? No, they are not.

They are exactly the same.

The difference is that the Nationalist Party does not take a used-car salesman approach to going after the votes of the gullible.

There is another difference. The Nationalist Party is not homophobic and most of its support base tends not to be homophobic either. The only openly gay member of parliament is Nationalist.

The Labour Party is inherently homophobic because of its socio-cultural background and totalitarian political roots. Its politicians use words like ‘pufta’ and believe that calling people ‘pufta’ is the ultimate insult. In this, they are a reflection of their support-base, which uses sexual denigration out of habit.

The Labour Party set up a political ghetto for gay people, grouping them with transsexuals and others they obviously consider ‘abnormal’, and treating them as special cases. The Nationalist Party doesn’t give a damn about the sexuality of its people – and that’s meant in a positive way – and doesn’t bother considering whether a person is homosexual or heterosexual when integrating them into the party structure.

The Labour Party, on the other hand, makes special cases of its token gays, while leaving the rest comfortably in the Super One closet, with the Vileda rubber gloves and mop-and-bucket.

Some Forum Zghazagh Laburisti twit cooed on Facebook about how he and Cyrus Engerer – the only Labour gay man who isn’t in the closet precisely because he came direct from the Nationalist Party – were saying only the other day how wonderful it was to see “a gay and a Muslim” chatting together on a sofa at the Labour congress.

A gay and a Muslim. I try to imagine a context in which I might look at my friends and think of them as ‘a gay and a Muslim’ rather than as, say, Joe and Soraya. And I can’t. That’s because I don’t think of them a ciphers for their religion or sexuality, as Labour does.

Yet for some reason, it’s Labour’s atavistic attitude to ‘pufti’ and special treatment for ‘pufti’, as though you are somehow crippled because you prefer to have sexual relations with those of the same gender, that Gabi Calleja prefers.

How very odd.

There’s more, of course. You have to be truly unintelligent to look at your own selfish aims (and yet get even these wrong) while failing to consider the bigger picture.

Look where that got Franco Debono and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.

Telling gay people to vote Labour because Labour believes in equality is like telling them to sink a ship to drown a rat on board.

Imagine asking people to elect a Labour government for five whole long years, with a Super One hack as prime minister and Mintoff’s favourite boy as senior cabinet minister, with no policies and with the seeds of economic disaster already being scattered about, just so that Gabi Calleja can feel more equal.

And equal to what, anyway? If she thinks that Joseph Muscat is going to legislate so that she can marry her lover, she’s howling at the moon.

Gabi Calleja seems like a nice person, and unfortunately, the nice are too easily eaten for breakfast by the not-so-nice.

As for the propaganda that “the gay community” has swung towards Labour because Joseph Muscat is so great about gays, forget it. All the gay men and women shouting on Facebook about how wonderful Joseph Muscat is, and how they are planning to vote Labour, come from Mintoffian families to start with.

I know exactly what I’m talking about.

They would have voted for Muscat anyway. But they’re not going to tell you that, because then they’ll have to admit in public that their voting history includes Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici for prime minister, Alfred Sant for prime minister, and if they’re old enough, Mintoff for prime minister.

They’re happy to boast about their support for Joseph, but they’re not going to tell you about their parents’ rabid support for Dom Mintoff (or theirs, because mmaaaaaaa, it’s too embarrassing).

They’ll even have to admit that they voted against EU membership. And that’s not going to be great for their street cred and cool Facebook rating, is it.

Sensible gay men and women from non-Mintoffian family backgrounds think pretty much as I do about Labour, and make no mistake about it.

Those who consider homosexuals to be one great, undifferentiated mass – and here Gabi Calleja and her lobby group are guilty as charged – are committing the same wrongs they argue against.

We’re talking here of ordinary people like all others, with lives, attitudes and opinions that are as different and differentiated as those of everyone else.




46 Comments Comment

  1. The chemist says:

    Maybe Gabi knows something we don’t. She should ask Joe Grima what he thinks about addressing gay people and their rights.

  2. anthony says:

    It does not bode well for MGRM to have a coordinator that is so naive.

  3. mc says:

    Muscat is good at this sort of thing. He sits on the fence on any hot subject and yet gives the impression he’s all for it. Or maybe he has reached some sort of pact with MGRM though not going public about it before the election.

  4. SEXUS says:

    Ma nistax nifhem kif min qieghed f’minoranza sesswali jibbaza d-decizjoni ta’ kif se jivvota a bazi ta’ x’jghid kap ta’ partit politku fuq it-tali suggett. What about the econamy? U l-valuri?

  5. H.P. Baxxter says:

    How nice! Let’s fuck up the country so Gabi and her girlfriend can get married and adopt a child.

    • Stephen Forster says:

      I know what you mean, and I would rather not. She/he can sod off to the UK and do that.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        Actually, lesbian couples can already adopt. There’s a loophole in Maltese law which means that a single woman can apply for adoption.

        In any case, single-issue voting positions are dangerous.

      • Harry Purdie says:

        All single positions are dangerous, my friend. Someone once said you can go blind.

  6. David II says:

    I would agree with you that it is a mistake for gay people to rush to Joseph Muscat and PL with their vote as he has not yet said, concretely what he is offering.

    He did recently say that he will consider adoption related to the interest of the child and not the sexual orientation of prospective parents, but that could very well be a play with words.

    Whether or not the recognition of same sex couples to be given is called marriage means very little though, as it is the rights that come with it that matter not the name. A British civil partnership gives much more rights than a Portuguese gay marriage.

    The PN though, by drawing the line on gay rights and saying that the cohabitation bill will be as good as it gets, has certainly disappointed a number of its gay voters. Make no mistake, I personally know a number of PN-leaning gay people who have decided not to give their vote to PN next time round by either abstaining, voting AD or voting PL.

    [Daphne – If they are not planning to vote for the Nationalist Party, then they are not “PN leaning”. Political beliefs are what they say on the tin: if you vote AD you are an AD supporter, if you vote PN you are a PN supporter, and if you vote Labour then you are Labour. There is no such thing as a Nationalist who votes Labour. Somebody who votes Labour is a Labour voter. Obviously. People who don’t vote are just people who don’t vote.]

    I am one of them. Personally I feel that giving my vote to a party which adopts a decisively discriminatory approach towards me, is like being a Jew and voting for the Nazis, or being black and voting for Imperium Europa.

    [Daphne – If you wish to be convincing, I would start by avoiding hysterical hyperbole. Gays are not persecuted in Malta. Rather the opposite. They are feted. You only have to switch on any Maltese morning or early evening TV show to see that. They are certainly not persecuted by the Nationalist Party. If gay politicians feel perfectly comfortable and even exceptionally enthusiastic about standing on the PN ticket or working within the PN in other ways, then I don’t quite see why you would have a problem. And might I remember you once more than you are talking to a woman, a member of the most-discriminated-against group on earth and throughout history, especially in Malta until very recently. Forgive me if I don’t exactly sob because gay men can’t marry. As I say repeatedly, gay men always had more right than women of whatever sexual tendencies, purely by virtue of being men, which took precedence at law over being gay. That gives me a proper sense of perspective. It’s also the reason why gay men get more agitated over this single piece of unfairness than gay women do. It’s the first piece of discrimination they have ever had to deal with.]

    Yes there are gay people who will still be voting PN anyway. But these are just like those gay people who are still religious, and attend church services, in spite of a highly discriminatory church towards them. It is not easy to erase something which has been with you for a big part of your life.

    [Daphne – Rubbish. It’s perfectly easy to do so. I’ve done it myself. Adults vote the way they do because they want to. No excuses.]

    You have used the metaphor of sinking a ship to drown a rat on board. Probably, the ship metaphor is inappropriate, because the crew of a ship all have one collective aim when it comes to the well-being of the ship or its final destination, while when it comes to voting, everyone will vote according to his or her personal priorities. No one will vote for some common good or common goal.

    [Daphne – Utter bollocks. Tens of thousands of people here vote for the common good over and above personal interests. The EU membership vote was proof positive of that. I knew very many people who stood to lose their protected businesses or expose them to difficult competition through EU membership, and still they voted for it because they knew that it would be the best thing for Malta and for the younger generation, even if it would be the worst thing for their business. People do this on a regular basis. Then there are those who have the imagination to see that the common good is their good too, that if the economy goes down the spout, they too will eventually suffer.]

    Furthermore, for gay people who are not filled with a culturally imposed self-hatred, not to feel they are being treated discriminately is a priority. Feeling treated like a second class citizen (third class even) every single day of your life while you are paying the same taxes as everyone else is a very nasty feeling, I can vouch for that. PN is, literally and explicitly, telling gay people that it will not safeguard or pursue our interests, and hence that it is not the party for them.

    [Daphne – The mistake you make is to think of your interests as ‘gay interests’. They are not. They are exactly the same interests as mine. You don’t want any nasty surprises, you want a sound economy, you want to know where you are from one day to the next, and you don’t want the resurrection of Mintoffian economics. Let me just spell it out to you. The law which made women equal to men in marriage came into force in 1993. Yes, that ruddy late. Had Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s party promised us this legislation in 1987 and 1992, would we have voted Labour? No, we would not – unless we were Labour to start with. There were bigger priorities and more important issues at stake.]

    You also say that the support base of the Nationalist party is not homophobic. Then what was that booing in the ‘Fosos tinda’ when Kurt Sansone mentioned the word gay marriage? A show of support for homosexuals?

    [Daphne – No, a show of disapproval for Kurt Sansone. It’s well known that he’s a mega-Laburist, from yet another of those Stella Maris parish (Sliema) Mintoffian families I keep telling you about, if only you would listen. He made a brief detour to AD, and now he’s back home with Labour.]

    On the other hand, Joseph Muscat might be playing the crafty game of giving people hope when the other side, which is set in its ways, is not giving any. And I don’t mean just gay issues. Then it might very well be that the PN is handing the PL the election on a silver platter.

    • anna caruana says:

      ,

      Even Baxxter should know that a Lesbian couple are not SINGLE.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        In the eyes of the law, they are. Sorry to disappoint you. Even a heterosexual couple, unmarried, who’ve lived under the same roof for fifty years and raised children and grandchildren are still legally single.

    • Edward Caruana Galizia says:

      David, I don’t think you know who you are talking about.

      First of all I will be voting for the PN not because I am religious.

      I will be voting for the PN because they have an ethical stance on how to treat immigrants that show up in our waters desperate for a better life- or rather to simply have a life, while Dr Liberal Joe seems to be perfectly happy to send them away which means let them drown.

      I will be voting PN because they have managed to keep Malta afloat through the worst financial crisis in generations without cutting stipends, social security, and welfare.

      I will be voting PN because they restored democracy in Malta and have treated every Maltese man and woman fairly regardless of who those individuals voted for.

      I will be voting PN because, despite their shortcomings, they have done some fantastic things for Malta, and EU membership is just one of them.

      I will be voting PN because whatever shortcomings they may have, those shortcomings are nothing compared to the violence and thuggery the Labour Party is guilty of and is now claiming never happened, to the extent that it has somehow managed to get people to demonize those who bring it up.

      The Labour Party has created a phantom enemy and called it GonziPN and channels all its anger and criticism at that phantom enemy, but no one really knows who GonziPN is – it could be anybody.

      Now, regarding the Labour Party’s gay ghetto: it’s a farce. It was just set up to get people to vote Labour.

    • Distressed observer says:

      When I read the type of comments posted by David II I just want to pack my bags and leave Malta.

      I have never once in my life felt discriminated against as a gay man – and in any case, what has discrimination got to do with the Nationalist Party, the only true meritocratic party?

  7. Giovanni says:

    Joseph invited her and after their meeting he gave her a drink u zewg pastizzi and that convinced her that with Labour it works.

    I hope that the genuine gays will realise that Gabi is taking them for a ride together with Joseph and his Labour movement.

    [Daphne – Genuine gays as distinct from what? Those who are only pretending to be gay?]

  8. xmun says:

    I think Gabi needs to get hold of a copy of two particular episodes of Xarabank. It was the only ime that Joseph Muscat gave a clear answer.

    When asked what he thinks of same sex marriage, Joseph Muscat clear in his wording, said he is against.

    Ask him anything else on whichever subject you may dream of and his answer is vague. That was the one time he wasn’t.

    I can understand Gabi’s frustration because her cause is getting nowhere, but voting Labour will not relieve her of that same frustration.

    She will quickly realise she and her friends have been duped, but then as with everything else, it’s too late.

  9. The other Dom says:

    Hey Gabi, stennejt ferm ahjar minnek. What a let-down you are.

    Somebody please find Joey’s statements on gay adoptions etc which he spouted on Xarabank.

    I wonder what your thoughts WILL be after you’ve heard them.

    I cannot believe that you haven’t woken up to the fact that we’re landed with an aspiring prime minister with zilch credibility. That’s a good start.

    • maryanne says:

      Gabi can read this, as is being reported on The Times.

      .17 p.m. Muscat promises civil liberties and respect for diversity. He criticised the prime minister for voting against divorce despite the outcome of the referendum. For Labour, all families are the same and Labour will recognise a union of people of the same sex. It will not judge how people live their lives

  10. Wormfood says:

    The very concept of a ‘gay community’ with its own flag and ‘pride marches’ is absurd and the ‘gay identity’ (which in my books is not necessarily the same thing as homosexuality, even though all gays are homosexual) is an artificial, manufactured political identity.

    It is fitting that Gabi supports Muscat, because she’s a person with a massive chip on her shoulder and like Labour she has reduced homosexual individuals to their mere sexuality.

  11. anna caruana says:

    Gay community , own flag. Please try and make sense when you speak.

    Give me 1 other reason why same sex couples can t marry if not because of sexuality.

    [Daphne – Because the law says they can’t, Anna. Oh, do you mean ‘may not marry’? The reasons are rooted in history and culture. They are not practical or sensible reasons in today’s world, but the historical legacy remains, and doing away with it is difficult.]

    ,

    • Wormfood says:

      ‘Please try and make sense when you speak.’

      Yawn! What is the ‘rainbow flag’ for Anna, who does it represent? Certainly not individuals like myself. Rather than trying to blame your naive ignorance on me please go out more often. What I am talking about goes much deeper than ‘gay marriage’.

      And for the record I’m not at all opposed to state recognised civil unions between homosexuals, even though I happen to think that the very concept of ‘gay marriage’ is ridiculous.

      I can understand why some would hanker after the recognition and other benefits but if homosexuals want experience the joys of having more intrusion by the state and the law courts in their private lives, in their effort to be ‘like everyone else’ they are welcome to it, I will certainly not deny it to them.

    • anna caruana says:

      Blacks used to sit at the back of the bus and now there s a black president.

      Maybe we need a few bloggers to carry the torch.

      .

      .

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        Oh I agree. I think marriage should be open to homosexual couples. It’s just that Labour never promised it, and Gabi Calleja is misguided if she thinks it’ll ever see the light of day under Joseph Muscat.

        NOW do you understand?

      • Wormfood says:

        Are you comparing homosexuals to the Afro American ‘ethnic group’ by any chance? Have they suddenly become another oppressed ethnic minority in Apartheid South Africa or Mississippi? Jesus effing Christ!

        No, what is needed is that people like you and Joseph Muscat stop patronising them and using them for their own political agendas. They are individuals, to be respected like any other. No one here is opposed to ‘gay marriage’ either. You are barking up the wrong tree.

        Address your issues to the ‘Moviment Progressiv’, the gay activist idiots who voted for them will be the among the first ones against the wall when they come to power, you mark my words.

  12. ciccio says:

    The strange thing is that Gabi Calleja is saying something about a position of the Malta Labour Party which the Malta Labour Party itself did not say.

    When did the Malta Labour Party declare its position about marriages or civil unions or partnerships for gay couples?

    I heard Evarist Bartolo’s opinions, but otherwise I do not remember hearing anyone else in Labour about this.

  13. Lomax says:

    Joseph Muscat has just said it in his “mass meetinc” – Gvern Gdid (whatever happened to “Laburista”?) jirrikonoxxi l-unjoni civili ta’ bejn persuni ta’ l-istess sess”.

    So, I might be wrong here but isn’t that what the current bill is all about? Creating rights for cohabiting persons – of whichever sex and sexual orientation?

    So, what’s the novelty?

  14. sasha says:

    Hear Hear, Nationalists always treat everyone equally. It is always Labour who are judgmental. They are constantly labelling people or segmenting them; women; disabled; gay and the most important non-Labour. Dawn mhux maghna.

  15. Distressed observer says:

    I feel like I have to chip in here.

    I’m gay and I will definitely NOT be voting Labour, because:

    (a) I will vote for the party which has the most sensible policies;

    (b) clearly Labour has not taken any stance on gay marriage and is just toying with the gullible ‘pink’ vote.

  16. Distressed observer says:

    And just to be clear I’ll be voting for the Nationalist Party because it’s the one party that truly deserves to govern.

  17. Dorothy says:

    I remember this woman (I am not Labour, so I won’t refer to her as this mara-ragel, which is the equivalent of the ‘pufta’ they’re so fond of) as a young girl.

    We were at the same church school, St Dorothy’s Convent.

    As I recall, she was one of the few girls whose parents sent her to ‘Sandhurst’ – that fake school set up by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s government when he shut down the church schools in 1984. Most parents refused to cooperate with Labour and instead kept their children at home and helped organise and host private tuition for groups of children in living-rooms, kitchens and garages.

    It was mainly the Labour parents who cooperated with the Labour government by sending their children to ‘Sandhurst’. I’m taking an educated guess here that Gabi Calleja isn’t supporting Muscat because he promised her civil unions, but because she was raised in a Labour household, by the sort of parents who couldn’t even stand up to the regime on something as important as freedom to choose your children’s education.

    I repeat that the only girls who went to ‘Sandhurst’ were the daughters of Mintoffjani, bar the few daughters of expatriate workers who were afraid of repercussions like being thrown out of Malta for ‘foreign interference’.

    Gabi, who was known by the unfortunate name of Bella back then, had Maltese parents.

  18. Randon says:

    Hold on! All that Gabi said was for the gay community to ‘vote wisely’.

    I see noting wrong in that statement, unless you think gay people are intrinsically stupid and incapable of voting for their own interests.

    I am sure that quite a large number of PN voters will be voting for their own interests (you know, the lure of the gravy train…), so why shouldn’t gay people do the same?

    [Daphne – They don’t, in fact, Randon. The gravy train is just something that those who support the Labour Party like to believe exists, in the hope that they can climb aboard when ‘their’ party is in power.]

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Oh come on, Daphne. There really are a few gravy trains. It’s not just Labour’s imagination.

      [Daphne – The only one that comes immediately to mind is that occupied by President Abela’s Labour candidate son Robert and his Labour-Party-official wife Lydia: the MEPA legal office gravy train. Absolutely shocking, but the Labour Party never talks about it. Strange, that. I guess they’re not going to be thrown off the train come the elevation to power of that Super One hack.]

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        I could name a few off the top of my head:

        The Euro Changeover Committee, Valletta 2018 Foundation, some departments within OPM (Frazier’s done very nicely for herself and is now ambassador plenipotentiary to Belgium. Lovely), MEPA you mentioned, MTA, Malta Enterprise….

    • Edward Caruana Galizia says:

      I have absolutely no reason to believe that the PL has any interest in actually doing anything to help introduce gay marriage in Malta.

      In fact, I have every reason to believe that they are only pretending to be pro-gay rights just to win a few more votes and back up the illusion that they are a liberal party.

      Or better still, do what Mintoff did and give people what they want so that they will let you do what you like.

  19. Chris Ripard says:

    Skuzi ta, if people like Gabi can’t make children, they shouldn’t be allowed to adopt them. Simples.

    The “right” to have children, which they whinge on and on about so vehemently simply doesn’t exist.

    If anything, anybody from a fertilised ovum up has the real (not pretended) right to a mother and father and homosexuals who artificially conspire to conceive children are denying their progeny this right!

    People like Gabi want to have theor cake and eat it and it’s just not on, a mon avis.

    • Edward Caruana Galizia says:

      Chris, what on Earth are you saying?

      So what about heterosexual couples who can’t have children? Should they have to just lump it? And what about all those orphans who deserve a family? Should they remain parent-less because the only people who have the right to children all have their own?

      • Chris Ripard says:

        Whilst I fully respect your opinion, Edward, I think heterosexual couples who can’t have children are inherently different from homosexual couples who can never naturally reproduce.

        Adoption by unfortunate heteros is the correction of a natural mistake, adoption by homos is selfish – to put it mildly.

      • Edward Caruana Galizia says:

        Chris; you have absolutely no science or logic to back your argument up. While I respect your opinion, I still feel it is only right to make you aware that your opinion is as valid as “the aliens built the pyramids” to put it mildly.

      • Chris Ripard says:

        Edward, are you trying to say that there’s empirical evidence to even suggest that homosexual parenting works better than a mother and a father?

        Hand on heart, can you say that families should simply be indefinite groups of adults of any sexuality contriving to obtain/make/buy/adopt children and raise them because they have a “right”?

        Logic or science apart, I hope I’m pushing up daisies when it happens!

    • MMuscat says:

      Chris, the body of a homosexual is perfectly capable to have children, thus your argument is flawed. With your argument only people who already have children should be allowed to adopt.

      • Chris Ripard says:

        OK MMuscat, by your logic: because I’m perfectly capable of killing someone, that makes it OK?

        (and you say my argument is flawed?)

  20. Duminku says:

    Even though they are never mentioned, AD should be given credit for being hte first party for gay marriage and for the removal of all forms of discrimination in social policy (ergo extending the rights of adoption).

    However I want to delve deeper into the psyche of Gabi Calleja. Knowing AD’s position, why is she so ostensibly supporting PL in this campaign? How can she, pretending to be a decent and professional lobbyist, settle for less with Labour then with AD?

    Are we to expect Ms. Gabi Calleja to hold a nice post in a governments’ secretariat if PL wins? Maybe with Evarist Bartolo’s education portofolio? Surely not with Marie-Louise Coleiro and Silvio Parnis…..

    To sum it up, she is doing the greatest disservice to her community and her (let’s face it) reputable organisation by going at it for her own personal gain. Pity.

  21. Gabi Calleja says:

    Just in the interest of truth may I point out that I did in fact attend St Dorothy’s Convent right up until Form V.

    I came across my school leaving certificate should proof be required. Also in the interest of truth, I was actually a volunteer with the ASSP, and actively involved in campaigning for the right of church schools to exist. My parents hosted lessons in our house.

    • mattie says:

      Gabi, yes, you were always good at campaigning for rights, which, most of the time, proved to be successful.

      Just keep an eye open this time, to make sure that you are not taken for a ride.

  22. Gabi Calleja says:

    It seems that Dorothy’s memory is playing tricks on her. She did get one thing right. My family calls me Bella, my nephews and nieces call me Aunty Bella, many of my oldest friends call me Bella… although what relevance this may have to the matter at hand I couldn’t fathom.

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