Comments on: Mahatma Gandhi is alive and well and sporting a ginger goatee

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:44:20 +0000

@Slavocic – definitely.

By: Slavocic

Slavocic — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:02:54 +0000

Another issue that I think should feature more on your articles in the coming year Daphne…. Especially if the Labour party is going to be proposing it. Let’s have Nationalist “liberals” have a voice through you…

By: jb

jb — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:34:57 +0000

Daphne: I wasn’t trying to imply that cohabitation should be regulated by default. I agree that couples should declare their commitment to qualify for these legal rights.

Your previous comment did not refer to same-sex couples, but now you have clarified your position, and I have nothing to add, except to say I agree.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:07:07 +0000

@JB – I think cohabitation rights for gay couples is as bad an idea as it is for heterosexual couples. Why? Because you end up having your cohabiting relationship governed by this law by default and not by voluntary submission through signing a contract. This is completely off-the-wall. People who make an active choice to live together without marrying usually do so (if they have the option of marriage) because they don’t want their relationship regulated by the law. You can’t force the law on them. It’s wrong. Having your relationship governed by the law should be a choice, not a default scenario.

Gay couples should be able to voluntarily commit to each other through a civil contract recorded at the public registry, as all married couples do (even those who marry in church). And they shouldn’t be put at risk of a situation where, if they live together for, say, five years, they discover that their relationship is regulated whether they want it to be or not.

Something else about that cohabitation law: it’s going to be dealing mostly with couples who can’t get married because one or both is/are married to somebody else. So what are we planning to do here – institutionalise an odd form of polygamy or a wife/concubine system? It’s absolutely ridiculous.

By: jb

jb — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:25:45 +0000

Moderator – ‘Do gay couples want to be marginalised into a form of sub-marriage?’

My point is that there should be legal recognition of their rights. Whether this would involve extending the institution of marriage to homosexual couples or setting up some other legal framework is another matter.

[Moderator – If that ‘other legal framework’ is not marriage, then it follows that it less than marriage. So, yes, the structure of the legislation is at the heart of the problem. If gay couples want the status of marriage then they must get married. There are no two ways about it.]

By: Slavocic

Slavocic — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:03:48 +0000

On this note, here are some funny videos I found that show the difference between Marriage and Civil Unions (which is an example of the sub-marriage the moderator referred to):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrwAUV8Ofcc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niUsik0NQmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyXEaR-qdyg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xNKuEI_p_k

Enjoy :)

By: jb

jb — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:35:57 +0000

Daphne: there is another situation where a case may be made for regulating cohabitation: that of same-sex couples, who currently do not have the option of marriage.

[Moderator – Do gay couples want to be marginalised into a form of sub-marriage?]

By: Amanda Mallia

Amanda Mallia — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:42:56 +0000

“No one will be asked to leave the party” – They’ll simply leave on their own volition

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:31:08 +0000

@Slavocic – I am actually opposed to the cohabitation legislation being proposed by the Nationalist Party, except in the case where, say, two sisters or brothers live together. This might sound eyebrow-raising at first, but in the UK there is actually a dreadful problem with this situation. Two old siblings live together in a home they own, one dies and the other is forced to sell the home to pay inheritance tax.

In the case of heterosexual couples, I strongly disagree. There is already a law that protects their interests. It’s very old, tried and tested, and called marriage. If people are free to marry they don’t need ‘cohabitation laws’. They only need cohabitation laws because they are not free to marry, and the solution to that is divorce, not a law that protects the interests of cohabitees.

I think it is wrong to introduce laws that protect the interests of cohabitees – not for moral reasons, but because when two people choose to live together without getting married, it is because they don’t want the ties and tangles that go with marriage, and so it is wrong to impose these restrictions on them. The obvious solution is divorce, so that all couples can choose to marry if they want to. And if they don’t want to, that’s their choice.

By: amrio

amrio — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:13:27 +0000

Why are we all here seem so sure that the majority of MP’s (and the majority of the Maltese electorate) are against the introduction of divorce legislation?

And while I’m at it, another question – as far as I’m aware, most of countries introduced divorce legislation via a referendum. Do you think that in Malta, the Catholic church position being so strong (and so strong against divorce), would holding such a referendum be an exercise in democracy or not?