But it is not the only thing I was wrong about: Austria (Ist Jan 10), Hungary (1st July 09), Portugal, Slovenia and Luxembourg also cater for same-sex relationships as does Croatia. So of the “old” EU member states only Italy and Greece do not cater for same-sex relationships (Ireland is working on it). Of the new member states 3 already do and 9 do not.

Agreed. This is what I have been trying to say all along.

[Daphne – No, but there are civil unions which are applicable only to same-sex couplings. They didn’t call it marriage not to upset everyone else.]

I am very much aware of what the UK legislation provides for. You are factually incorrect. Civil unions are also available for heterosexual partners. The problem is not that you have an opinion but that you speak with such authority when it is obvious that you have a somewhat superficial understanding of the issue.

[Daphne – That wouldn’t be a good idea. Every woman knows that if a man hasn’t popped the question in five years, he’s never going to.] Affarihom … but I’ll hand it to you tajba that’s funny.

[Daphne – Calm down, for crying out loud. I agree with you that homosexual couples should be able to register their partnership if they want to.] Mela hekk ghax qtajtli nifsi.

[Daphne – I’m sorry to have to contradict you again, but civil partnerships in the UK are for same-sex couples only. The ‘civil unions’ for heterosexuals to which you refer are civil marriages as opposed to marriages conducted by the religious rite. The only form of union between heterosexuals couples in the UK is marriage, whether religious or civil. There is nothing else.]

u ajma gejja bil-waltz. No you do not waltz in. You prove that you have a stable relationship. There are strict requirements. IF and only IF you fulfil them, by virtue of the civil unions act you can, as an EU national, apply for a UK residence and work permit for your non-EU same-sex partner.

[Daphne – Thank you for proving my point after being disingenuous about ‘being allowed to live with your non-EU boyfriend in other countries but not in Malta.’ There has to be a civil partnership, you said so yourself at last. In other words, boyfriends and girlfriends are NOT allowed, elsewhere as in Malta. Malta’s problem is the lack of civil partnerships, not the refusal to allow freedom of movement to non-EU nationals who are in an unregistered sexual relationship with an EU national, or claim to be.]

There is no gay marriage in the UK.

[Daphne – No, but there are civil unions which are applicable only to same-sex couplings. They didn’t call it marriage not to upset everyone else.]

There is gay marriage in some countries (eg Netherlands, Belgium and Spain) and other forms of registering your partnership in other countries (see my previous post). Those countries that have gay marriage also have registered partnerships.

This discussion has become one of semantics and definitions but the issue is this: my partner and I, who have been together for five years, have no option, be it marriage or registered partnership or civil union, to obtain some of the basic rights that heterosexual couples can get through marriage (up to this point I agree with you). But gay marriage is not necessarily the only answer. There are other less controversial solutions. And these solutions are available in nine “old” EU member states and the Czech republic. Ireland and Luxembourg are working on it. Of the “old” member states Austria, Greece, Italy and Portugal do not and have no plans to as far as I am aware (one wonders why).

You cannot compare my situation to someone who has just met someone from Moldova and is not prepared to get married. I have been with my boyfriend for five years and if marriage was the only option I would go for it. Please compare me to someone who has been with a Moldovan girl for five years.

[Daphne – That wouldn’t be a good idea. Every woman knows that if a man hasn’t popped the question in five years, he’s never going to.]

But quite frankly I don’t give a fig for marriage. I would be very happy with the option of a registered partnership or civil union or the French PACS. The fact remains I have NO option.

This is NOT about gay marriage. I agree that asking for gay marriage is, to say the least, premature. But I do not understand why it is ok to campaign for divorce and not ok to campaign for a legal framework to regulate gay relationships. The recognition of foreign same-sex marriages is a matter for the courts to decide we will have to wait for the first test case.

A non-sequitur:
The prospect of not being able to live with the man that I had shared the last three years of my life with was a source of great stress and emotional hardship. We are lucky in that our parents are very supportive and have invested heavily in our education. Because of these two factors we have found a way to be together (albeit not in Malta). We have now been together for five years.

Another non-sequitur

I agree that we do not have real problems in Malta that we are blessed to have a great quality of life found only in a handful of countries. But these are not trivial issues. This is my family that we are talking about and I have the right to ask my elected representatives to provide a legislative framework to protect my family.

Final non-sequitur
u jrid ikollok wicc biex tghidli patronising – you should re-read some of your own writing.

[Daphne – Calm down, for crying out loud. I agree with you that homosexual couples should be able to register their partnership if they want to.]

So you’re a journalist that doesn’t do research. This is something I have suspected for a long time, considering the amount of times you have printed erroneous information.

[Daphne – That’s what’s called a non sequitur. I’m not going to check the immigration legislation of those countries because I don’t plan to write about the immigration legislation of those countries. If I do plan to write about immigration legislation, then I would check it. “The amount of times I have printed erroneous information” – please enlighten me.]

You also tell him “you can’t live in Malta with a non-EU partner. Heterosexuals can’t do that either.” Yes Daphne, THEY CAN. Any foreigner married to a Maltese can obtain Maltese citizenship after five years, even if he or she has never even set foot in Malta! While they’re waiting, they can come to Malta and obtain a work and residence permit allowing them to remain in the country.

[Daphne – Again, an illogical argument. The non-EU boyfriend of a Maltese man is not barred from living in Malta because he is in a gay relationship, but because he is non-EU. The immigration laws do not distinguish between gay and straight. The same law would affect the non-EU girlfriend of a Maltese man, and there are many such cases. Your assumption that the heterosexuals can marry is wrong, because it is based on the assumption that (1) the relationship is of a permanent nature, and (2) that the couple want to marry (and marriage is not just an expedient for a work and residence permit or citizenship), and (3) that they are free to marry. I think you’ll find that many of the Maltese men with non-EU girlfriends have, despite not being gay, the same problem you have. They can’t marry, in this case because they’re married already. Again, please do not interpret this as lack of sympathy for your plight. The truth could not be more different. I am just giving you a bit of advice: when putting forward your suit, you have to do so logically, or you will be tripped up by those who argue logically but who might have an agenda different to yours. So, conclude that all these problems you and others on this blog have mentioned are due to the absence of gay marriage – which they are – and then place your focus exclusively on achieving that. Arguing that you can’t have your non-EU boyfriend live with you will get you nowhere, because it will be immediately trounced with the reply that the law applies to all, gay or straight.]

This whole debate is not about gay marriage at all in any case, though you keep mentioning it. Australia, for example, has offered same-sex partners immigration rights for over a decade without any sort of gay marriage. Spain did as well, long before it thought of introducing gay marriage. But I guess you won’t want to go look that up.

[Daphne – You have clearly looked it up already, unless you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing. So in that case, please save me the bother and post a link to the specific legislation in Australia and Spain. It is in your interests to do so, not mine, because you are the one who wishes to bolster his argument. Again, a bit of advice: instead of claiming that Australia does this and Spain does that, quote the legislation. Spain is in the EU. It is has the same freedom of movement rules about non-EU citizens that we do. If it allows freedom of movement to non-EU same-sex partners, then that will be because the partnership is registered. I’m pretty sure you can’t just waltz in with a boyfriend from, say, Malawi or Uzbekistan and say at the immigration desk ‘Oh this is my boyfriend. He can stay and work’ and have them whisk you through. If that were the case, it would be open season, with people going through pretending to be other people’s homosexual partner, or for that matter, heterosexual partner, unless Spain and Australia discriminate against heterosexuals.]

As for the hospital scenario, YES gay partners ARE kept out, and it DOES HAPPEN. But as with all your arguments, anything that doesn’t happen in your own little world doesn’t exist, does it?

[Daphne – Hospital visiting hours are open to all. You just turn up to see somebody and if the patient doesn’t want to see you, he or she will call security to have you removed. There is no security desk checking visitors to see whether they are gay partners, so as to bar them entry. Basically, if your boyfriend wants to see you, you can see him. The trouble only arises if your boyfriend cannot speak for himself, and his mother, father, children or for that matter, wife, don’t want you around. But that is not a gay issue. It’s a family dispute issue. If you’re married to him, they can’t keep you out, but here’s the nice bit: you can keep them out. So again, the problem is marriage.]

And for this thing about “Have you any idea of the truly serious problems faced by thousands of people in this country?” Well if you’re going to use THAT as an argument, then I can reply that as a person coming from a country with MAJOR problems, then using that line of reasoning the Maltese should not be allowed to complain about anything at all!! You have no war, no famine, the majority of the population does not live in shacks without running water, education is free, healthcare is free, university students get a stipend… there is nothing that would constitute a truly serious problem in most parts of the world.

[Daphne – That’s a good assessment of the current situation, and exactly how I feel about it. But as you saw from this electoral result, it’s not how others feel. You have mentioned the situation in the country as being relatively cushy, but you’ll find that people’s problems are usually personal, and like yours, they involve their private life. The inability to divorce is a very big thing.]

You say you don’t like irrational arguments and yet you can’t seem to use a rational one.

[Daphne – On the contrary, I sometimes undermine myself by being far too rational, because most times what people want most is to be told they’re right. Tell them that, and they’ll love you. But it’s not going to happen, because I’m not a politician.]

If you stop repeating yourself you might actually allow yourself to hear something and then possibly listen and then ma tafx kif titghallem xi haga. You are so, so, so wrong on this one missek tisthi.

[Daphne – I guess you just don’t want to hear the truth then, but only want sympathy. Fact is, all your problems stem from the inability to marry, and you’re not alone in that. So talking of discrimination against homosexuals is neither here nor there. You not discriminated against as a homosexual because you can’t live in Malta with a non-EU partner. Heterosexuals can’t do that either. And please don’t be patronising. Less than 20 years ago, married women had fewer rights than gay men – and married women are in no way a minority. I say this only to put things into the proper perspective. You cannot seriously expect Malta to introduce same-sex marriage before divorce, or even concurrently. This is not a value judgment on gay marriage.]

Daphne

” I’m getting tired of repeating the same thing” Iss aremm hej iddejqet Daphne….well tough if you are tired of repeating yourself. I on the other hand was tired of having to count days in order to make sure that the person I share my life with did not overstay his tourist visa.

Discrimination is when same situations are treated differently. You should compare oranges to oranges and not to apples. You should compare my situation to that of a straight maltese person who has never been married. She or he has a way of getting their non-EU partner of living with him or her in Malta and I do not. Hence discrimination.

[Daphne – I’m sorry, but you’re assuming that every heterosexual relationship ends in marriage. It doesn’t. Those who have the option of marriage usually duck and dive away from it because the consequences are usually permanent and wide-ranging – with or without divorce. It is one of those strange ironies that the more possible marriage is, the less enticing it becomes. Of course there have been some heterosexual men who have married their non-EU girlfriends to put an end to this tourist visa nonsense, but there have been many more who haven’t, because the prospect of the tie that binds is more frightening than the bother of a tourist visa. So obviously, you feel differently about it.]

“That would be in very few countries” – depends how you look at it. The following EU states give immigration rights to same sex partners: UK, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, France, Czech Republic. 10 out of 27 is not exactly few … and the list is growing yearly Luxembourg and Ireland are working on it for instance. (Incidentally the following non-EU countries also do: Andorra, Iceland, Norway, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Uruguay).

[Daphne – I’m not going to check the immigration legislation of all those countries to see whether this is the case, but where the UK is concerned I would do a double-check on that information: even non-EU spouses from certain countries have problems, still less partners. And I really don’t think you can just waltz into the UK with somebody you describe as your partner and have that person granted freedom of movement. If that were the case, there would be a racket going on.]

Yes and in very many countries my boyfriend and I would be hanged and you would not be able to drive your car. Since when does “many” make something acceptable?

[Daphne – I have a problem with irrational arguments. I know it might come across as annoying, but that’s just me. I’m not seeking election so I don’t have to tell you what you want to hear.]

If you were responsible you would be showing a little bit more understanding and raising public awareness of the difficulties that we face. And I say difficulties – not martyrdom nor persecution. My partner and I never faced any social discrimination whatsoever – the only issues were legal.

[Daphne – Have you any idea of the truly serious problems faced by thousands of people in this country? Again, this issue boils down to the same thing: same-sex marriage. If you think I am going to start campaigning for same-sex marriage, you’re wrong. It’s not because I don’t agree with it, it’s because commonsense should dictate timing. Does Malta – a country without divorce – strike you as a suitable place to start a campaign for same-sex marriage. It’s not on the cards of either political party, nor will it be. Muscat can’t even bring himself to consider the whip for a divorce bill, and he’s supposed to be the progressive future. I’ll give you a tip: campaign for the registration in Malta of same-sex marriages made overseas. That’s the system we use here with divorce. You can’t divorce in Malta, but the state recognises divorces granted elsewhere.]

You went on a whole diatribe about marriage. I never once mentioned the word. I personally don’t particularly care too much for it. All I want is the some basic rights (such as immigration rights, being able to visit my partner in hospital in those cases when only family can etc ) that straight couple obtain through marriage or in many EU and non-EU countries, through civil or registered partnership.

[Daphne – There is no such thing as ‘only family’ in hospital. It’s next of kin or any other person the invalid asks for. Do you honestly imagine if somebody is lying in intensive care and asks for you, his boyfriend, you won’t be allowed in? Come on. Those rules are there to limit disturbance to those who are seriously ill, not to discriminate against unmarried people. The only problem you will have is if he is unconscious or in a coma and unable to speak for himself, and his blood family keeps you out. The solution? A good relationship with his family.]

Yes, Daphne, civil and registered partnerships are an option that a good number of civilised countries offer both straight and gay couples alongside with marriage.

[Daphne – Yes, and some uncivilised countries actually allow you to divorce. And to marry up to four women. Civilisation has nothing to do with it.]

As for your Moldovan boyfriend: you are married and I am not so the comparison is invalid. Furthermore you could always buy yourself an annulment or get “domiciled” abroad and obtain a divorce abroad which is recognised in Malta. I could do nothing …. hence my partner and I are now living in another EU country.

[Daphne – I don’t have a Moldovan boyfriend. I was pointing out to you that it’s not only gay men who have Moldovan boyfriends. And they have the same problem. It’s great that you’re living in another EU country. Five years ago that wouldn’t have been possible. I imagine there are other considerable advantages besides the ability to live with your partner without a tourist visa (oh, the benefits of no border controls), so enjoy it. I mean it.]

Yes someone must have looked at them.

Ahhh . . . the good old ‘aristokrazija’ raising it’s head once again . . . doesn’t that give you a warm feeling inside? This must be what little Joseph meant with his earthquake . . . and like all earthquakes it has unearthed a load of undesirable offal and debris that would have been best left buried.