'I'm gayer than you are, OK'
Not the best way to get your message across
The annual Gay Pride Parade takes place on Saturday at 10am, starting at the main gate to Valletta and proceeding down what used to be the royal road.
I find it interesting that something which presumes to be iconoclastic and breaking down the taboos and barriers of tradition should follow the ritual route of parades, mobs and demonstrations over the centuries since Valletta was built: from the main gate, down the royal road, to the royal palace.
The mad scramble to be seen in the front line has begun already among our politicians and other big cheeses. You can almost hear the arguments going on at the General Workers Union, the GRTU and the UHM.
Min se jmur dak il-haqq l-ustja mixja tal-pufti? Nibaghtu lil-Tony, tghid, jew il-Vince? Isma, il-Jason ghidlu biex jinsieh dak il-qalziet kollox spjegat ghax jahsbu li qieghed hemmhekk ghal ragunijiet ohrajn.
How ridiculous they all are.
I can tell you already that the leader of the opposition and his wife will be leading the parade, possibly dressed in pink and certainly wearing large smiles. Muscat might even get his parades confused and come half an hour late wearing a red paper poppy.
The prime minister would probably rather be pegged out in the midday sun and eaten alive by carnivorous ants than march down Republic Street tailed by a crowd of screaming queens, and this for roughly the same reason why I won’t be there myself.
Posturing makes me cringe, and bullying makes me see red.
The pressure put on politicians, by the gay lobby, to join in the Gay Pride Parade is just another form of bullying. If you’re not there, you hate and fear homosexuals and you won’t be getting our vote.
Well, let me put it this way: it’s the ones who turn up in their pink shirts with their big happy smiles (oh, I’m having so much fun gay-parading) who make me want to weep with irritation. They think they’re doing something really hip but really they know it takes more guts to stay away than to go there and march with the rest of the flock.
There’s no way I would ever go to a Gay Pride parade, and it’s not because I hate homosexuals. It’s because I am 100 per cent indifferent to people’s sexual orientation and I refuse to be coerced by the gay lobby into defining my friends, colleagues and everyone else as gay or straight.
If homosexuals want to ghettoise themselves, then they are going to get no help from me.
I hold the same view about women. I have always refused to be the token woman, the spokeswoman for women, to give comments on women’s issues, to take part in conferences on women’s this and that, and to subscribe to networks of women.
I just can’t stand that whole scene and believe that it is ultimately self-defeating and self-undermining. And so it is with homosexuals.
Also, a Gay Pride parade is possibly the worst tactic ever in a campaign to get the more conservative elements of Maltese society to look favourably on homosexuals, because it just confirms them in their prejudice that being homosexual is all about sex and pink-parading in make-up and tutus (the ‘girls’) and cargo-pants and butch hairstyles (the ‘boys’).
The best way for homosexuals to be accepted by the more conservative elements of society, if this is what they really want, is to go about their business quietly like the rest of us do. It is not homosexuality that the average person can’t stand, but ‘look at me’ behaviour, and this applies to straight people too.
If you want to get shafted and spat upon, the best way to go about it is to put on a pink tutu and a fancy wig and parade up and down Republic Street behind a load of bullied politicians behaving like rabbits frozen in headlights.
If you put on some normal clothes and go to work like everyone else, nobody is going to give a damn whether you like to shag your own gender, the opposite sex, both sorts, or no one at all. People are too embroiled in their own lives and most other people are just not interesting enough to command their attention.
Tough, but true.
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My sentiments exactly. The world is big enough for all sorts. There is no need for the ‘sorts’ to make it obvious that they are different from other ‘sorts’. It is self-defeating.
This is exactly (‘exactly’ written in bold, italics and underlined) the way I feel about the issue. I get so much slack from ‘fellow gay men’ for refusing to be part of the ‘scene’ and not taking part in such parades. This is just like those Maltese communities that are formed by Maltese people living abroad. I refuse to pin my identity down to one aspect of my being and cannot understand the urge people have to congregate with others of the same sexual orientation, or nationality.
That picture reminds me of the Tritons fountain in Valletta. Daphne, on another note, yesterday’s edition of Flair was simply brilliant. It keeps getting better and better. I loved the front cover too.
[Daphne – Thank you.]
Agreed, Anna, one of three truly excellent publications and guess who publishes the other two……..
The lady exudes quality and class in most of her work, and I say ”most” because if I say ”all” I can imagine the flak I’ll get from some commenters, and at my age arguing is bad for my blood pressure. On second thoughts…. who cares, so read ‘most’ as ‘all’.
[Daphne – Well, thanks. You’ve made my day.]
Why do homosexuals feel the need to go public with parades and on national TV stating their sexual preference? Do you see heterosexuals doing it? As if in this day and age we give a damn about people’s sexual orientation.
Personally, I think it is demeaning and undignified for a person to go through all that just to prove to society that s/he fits in.
[Daphne – You don’t prove that you fit in by going out of your way not to fit in.]
Heterosexuals don’t need to espouse or flaunt their sexuality because they already have all the rights and privileges which civil society provides. Gay men and women do not.
[Daphne – Oh, no? The law doesn’t, and never did, distinguish between homosexual and heterosexual, but only between men and women. Discrimination is all in your mind. Either that, or you’re confusing personal bias among individuals with state-sponsored discrimination. You went to medical school, right? And now, presumably, you’re working as a doctor. Did the application for medical school say ‘No homosexuals’? Were you refused employment at the state hospital because you prefer having sex with men? I don’t think so. Really, you homosexual men don’t know you’ve been born, which is why there are more of you complaining than there are homosexual women. Homosexual women, like heterosexual women, know the real meaning of discrimination and, when they’re 40+, have had direct experience of what it means to have fewer rights at law than men.]
Frankly, I think it’s patronising and condescending of straight people to criticise gays for daring to come out of the closet and agitate for their rights.
[Daphne – No. What we want to know is: what exactly are these rights you want, because we can’t work out what they are. Also, people like me, who have some experience of getting a message across, are telling you that what the general public sees as a ‘mixja tal-pufti’ down Republic Street is the very worst way to convince others who might need convincing that you’re just like everyone else. Women didn’t fight for their rights by parading in public wearing G-strings. On the contrary, the urban-legendary bra-burning demo in the US was actually a protest AGAINST the portrayal of women in demeaning outfits and postures.]
Fine. Give gay men and women equal rights to their straight counterparts and they will serenely get on with their lives and not make any straight person uncomfortable in their presence.
[Daphne – You have equal rights. The law does not distinguish between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Trust me on this, and consult a lawyer if you don’t believe me.]
The theme of this year’s diversity week is ‘Dignity in Diversity’. One would think, from reading this blog and the comments appended that diversity is a dirty word in Malta.
[Daphne – Dignity in Diversity, eh? And you think a Gay Pride march composed of people in strange outfits led by butt-licking politicians is a good way to be dignified? Somebody, somewhere, isn’t thinking…..oh dear, straight.]
Daphne, you are so refreshing! Totally agree with every single word.
That is so gay.
If only some of the persons in our gay parade were as interesting as this man :
http://www.slate.com/id/2222669/pagenum/all/#p2
What utter crap and nonsense you do spout sometimes, Daphne! And this from the fabled doyen of reasoned thinking and logic! It is so wide off the mark that I’m forced to consider it as another excursion into mischief-making.
Your naive stereotypical portrayal of the typical gay activist or gay person is so wide off the mark as to belong in Sacha Cohen’s latest movie, Bruno.
[Daphne – I can’t wait to see it.]
This year is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York, against police brutality and harassment and the start of the fight for gay rights. Annual pride events are a symbol against the ‘invisibility’ you seem to espouse and value.
[Daphne – God, you lot do bore on. Listen up: you either want to be invisible like the rest of us, or you don’t want to be invisible. You can’t have it both ways. As for the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York, the western world has moved on quite a bit since then. Hadn’t you noticed? God forbid we women should still be celebrating the anniversary of when we got the vote – at a time, may I point out, when you homosexual men had the vote already, by virtue of being men first and above all.]
If gay men and women don’t stand up to be counted then we have only ourselves to blame if civil society and the political establishment continue to ignore gay rights and equality issues.
[Daphne – Back to square one. What rights do you want other than the rights you have already? And please don’t bleat on about marriage. There’s a queue, made of up those who want to divorce.]
So yes, there may be a few flamboyantly dressed individuals who want to declare their objection to the dead head of ‘invisibility’. But there will also be plenty of others like myself, marching if need be with a stethoscope round my neck, to declare that to be ‘invisible’ is to ride roughshod over our rights and aspirations, and that we aspire to equality, no more and no less.
The suffragette movement at the start of the 20th century was hardly invisible, and outraged a lot of civil society at the time. But it was a fine stepping stone for women’s rights, especially the right to vote.
[Daphne – You’ve just undermined your own argument, sugar. The women’s movement 100 years ago was about real rights: women who were regarded as minors in the eyes of the law. How can you even have the temerity to compare the situation of women then to the situation of homosexual men and women now? If you have the intelligence to pass your medical exams, I imagine you have the intelligence to understand that your comparison is utterly stupid. A hundred years ago, homosexual men had all the rights that heterosexual men had, whereas women, whether homosexual or heterosexual, had almost no rights at all.]
I somehow think, Daphne, that the real issue here is that you’re concerned that somehow or other ‘Gay rights’ will trump or supercede other civil liberty issues, like divorce.
[Daphne – No. I’m trying to point out to you that on the list of priorities, homosexual marriage comes WAY BEHIND divorce, and only a real set of dreamers would think otherwise.]
That’s warped thinking. I want to point out that gay men and women comprise ordinary people like you and the rest of Maltese society and they are not prepared any longer to stay meekly in invisible mode paying their taxes and letting their rights get trampled on.
[Daphne – Ho hum. Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all along? I refuse to be press-ganged into treating homosexuals differently, or even into acknowledging that they are homosexual. Let me spell it out in capital letters: I DON’T GIVE A FLYING MONKEY’S WHAT YOU DO FOR SEX. IF YOU WANT TO DEFINE YOURSELF BY WHO YOU SHAG, GO RIGHT AHEAD, BUT DON’T INVOLVE ME IN IT OR TRY TO GET ME TO DO THE SAME BECAUSE I WON’T. IF YOU WANT ME TO THINK OF YOU AS ‘MARK THE GAY DOCTOR’, YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME. TRY SOMEBODY ELSE.]
And yes civil partnership is high on the agenda. But so are loads of other injustices, such as next-of-kin rights.
[Daphne – You people need to consult a lawyer. We have been through all this before elsewhere on this website and it’s getting really boring. All your perceived injustices stem from the inability to enter into the equivalent of marriage with a person of the same gender. You cannot have next-of-kin rights without marriage/civil partnership. That applies to everyone, not just homosexuals.]
As a doctor I have no right to consult with the partner of a patient as to their treatment or prognosis.
[Daphne – Oh, please don’t be disingenuous. When your patients are over 18, you should be consulting with them, and not with their parents or guardians, about their treatment or prognosis. And if they are over 18, you have no right to consult others about that medical treatment or prognosis without their express consent. Therefore, unless your patient is in a coma or dying under general anaesthetic, you can discuss the matter with whoever he or she tells you to discuss it. And again, this situation is not unique to homosexuals. It is the case with all people who are not married to each other. Also, you will find that many married people specify somebody other than their spouse as the person to call upon in case of emergency – a sister, for example, a daughter or a parent – for the simple reason that they don’t trust their spouse.]
Ditto the absence of sexuality issues being part of the remit of the equality body in Malta. Ditto the situation regarding immigration status of third country nationals. Same as to equality for goods and services.
[Daphne – Third country nationals? I’m sorry, but do you know any straight people with permission to bring over a third country national as a resident consort, because I don’t.]
So stop attempting to intimidate and start using the fabled logic which has held you in good stead so far!
[Daphne – I’m sure you’ll take it in good part when I tell you that if you feel intimidated by a woman’s opinion in a blog-post then you’re a bit of a pufta.]
You really are a secret homophobe aren’t you? Darling I’m not a queen, don’t call me a pufta, and if you have the balls, which incidentally I have, don’t try to get your point across by insulting vilification. God you have issues that would engage a therapist full time for a year to sort out! And here I was idolising you as a heroine. I feel curiously bereft. Almost like the time I was mature enough to realise my folks were not perfect and flawless. Ho hum.
[Daphne – No, I’m not a secret ‘homophobe’. I just can’t stand cant, even if it is politically correct cant. If you want to believe that you’re being victimised by the state because you’re homosexual, go right ahead. The facts are otherwise, and no amount of cant is going to change that. Funny you should boast about your balls: gay or straight, when it comes to the crunch you men are all the same – proud of your tackle and struggling like hell against your innate suspicion of women.]
‘gay or straight, when it comes to the crunch you men are all the same – proud of your tackle and struggling like hell against your innate suspicion of women’
You couldn’t be more wrong. While I despise, just like you do, the deeply misogynistic pull of Maltese society, it helps no-one to nail your colours firmly to the mast of misandry.
[Daphne – Misandry? Hardly.]
If I am not mistaken, 100 years ago homosexuals didn’t have the right to be homosexuals, they were usually sent to jail. This is what happened to a famous author whose name has slipped my mind.
[Daphne – This is another urban legend. Homosexuality was never against the law, in England or Malta or anywhere else that immediately springs to mind. The crime was sodomy, and it applied to men sodomising women and not just to men sodomising men. Oscar Wilde was jailed for buggering another man, if you will allow me to spell it out crudely, and not for being a really camp homosexual. A woman could rid herself of a burdensome husband by claiming that he had forced her to submit to sodomy. He would then spend the next few years in prison and she would get a rare and unusual divorce, or choose instead to adopt the stance of a sorely treated woman, attracting lots of sympathy.]
I really did think that homosexuality was against the law at the time. One always learns.
[Daphne – How can a state of being be against the law? It would be like legislating against blue eyes or very tall people.]
Sexual relations between two males was outlawed as a result of the sodomy law which clearly stated that any form of sexual act that did not lead to procreation was illegal.
[Daphne – No, you’re quite wrong there. It was sodomy that was a criminal act, whether it involved two men or a man and a woman. A woman could have her husband jailed if he sodomised her. It would help your argument, and perhaps even your anger, if you were more specific about the facts.]
Daphne, I’m afraid that with your reply above you’ve joined the ranks of the Church who vociferously maintain that they’re not against the homosexuals themselves, but against the sexual act itself.
[Daphne – I don’t see how it follows, I’m sorry. Sodomy was illegal for everyone, not just homosexual men. There was no discrimination.]
Now how do you propose that two men (or women) live out a happy, committed relationship if their lovemaking is illegal?
[Daphne – Please commit to memory the simple fact that it wasn’t ‘gay lovemaking’ that was against the law, in Britain or Malta, but sodomy, and that for everyone, not just homosexual men. If you were to read more widely, you would know that history is replete with famed and fabled ‘close friendships’ between women, which neither caused offence nor provoked prosecution because clearly, no sodomy, of the sort that was criminal, could possibly be involved. I think you just want something to get outraged about.]
Gay rights, women’s rights, minoritiy rights, children’s rights, etc, etc, etc… this is the bull that further divides society. There is only one set of rights and this consists of individual rights to be enjoyed equally by every human being. Now, animal rights, that is something I would understand better, for they seem to have none at all.
You can save your words, Daphne: we are not going as GRTU. We never have, and have never discussed it at all. It’s just not our scene, or mine, as you very well know. We have more pressing issues to discuss. In my opinion, the politicos who attend fall into one category: ass-kissers who’d do anything for a vote.
Then maybe the GRTU are not too keen on the purchasing power of the gay and lesbian community, and would prefer they take their custom elsewhere? Interesting, if a little short-sighted.
[Daphne – That’s just the kind of tactic that rubs people the wrong way.]
O course it does. Just as taking your customers for granted rubs people the wrong way.
[Daphne – That’s not the way the market works and you know it. People will buy whatever it is they want even if they don’t agree with the political or religious views of the owner of the business. Shopping is now anonymous, so it makes no difference at all whether Mr or Miss Pink Pound spends it at franchise X or franchise Y. Making your views felt depends on being seen to do so. The idea behind a Pink Pound Boycott is that if all homosexuals gang up together and boycott franchise X, it will work. But in a situation of anonymity, all homosexuals are not going to gang up together. Instead they are going to buy what they want, where they want. It’s a sort of version of the tragedy of the commons if you like: people put their own personal interests and desires before the common good. The film version of Harvey Milk’s campaign was largely fictionalised: and it was set in the 1960s/early 1970s when there were real, live shopkeepers rather than multinational franchises. Also, I find it rather odd that a group of people calling for tolerance of their views should advocate intolerance of other people’s views. Grow up: in the real world, not everyone is going to like you, and that applies to us all, not just to homosexuals.]
‘Grow up’
God that sounds sooo ‘Sacred Heart’! Not sure if I’ve got the right convent school but that in particular brings a smile to my face. Just what my sister and her friends used to say to each other.
[Daphne – Sacred Heart? You obviously haven’t met me. What else would you say to somebody who needs to grow up?]
Both our leading unions have officials who can sport a t-shirt with the words “Hi, I’m Gejtu”.
[Daphne – That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. I’m going to steal it.]
If you all think I, along with all other homosexuals, have already won the rights that others take for granted, why am I still having to constantly justify my marriage to a large part of the Maltese population?
[Daphne – People’s personal prejudice, Aldo, should not be confused with the law. There are thousands of people about who think that a woman’s place is in the home when she’s married and has children, but it does not follow from this that married women are discriminated against. We were, but this is no longer the case. Incidentally, I know a man and woman who have lived together for many years, who are free to marry each other but who have chosen not to do so. They have to justify their decision NOT to marry, and it is commonly assumed that there must be some impediment. The woman was once told, by an older lady: “Don’t worry, dear. He might marry you soon.”]
Why do you think that the Maltese state does not recognise my civil partnership?
[Daphne – Because there isn’t the legal instrument in place. The Maltese state does not permit divorce within its jurisdiction, but has the legal instrument for the recognition of credible divorces obtained elsewhere.]
Why is it that I with all my pretence of being ‘out’ and at peace with my sexuality, I still look around furtively whenever I feel like holding hands with my husband?
[Daphne – Oh, you’re not alone in that. I do the same. I got a real tongue-lashing from one of the boys once when he spotted me walking along holding hands with his father for all of two seconds somewhere that we might have been seen by his friends, thereby causing potential major embarrassment and loss of face. If we’re honest, we have to admit that any married or older couple holding hands looks potentially ridiculous in a ‘look at me’ way. ]
Why is it that my nephews come back with tales of the word “gay” still being the major insult in the school playground? Why is it that when local schools decide to include sex education in their curriculum, only heterosexual relationships are presented to children?
[Daphne – It’s always going to be used as an insult because boys are naturally awful and harsh and there’s very little you can do about that. Parents don’t help when they block out what is obvious to everyone but themselves. There was a woman chuntering on in The Sunday Times yesterday about how her eight-year-old son was being bullied by the other boys in his class because “he’s creative and sensitive and likes to hang around with the girls”. So all right, it’s hard to explain incipient homosexuality to a classroom of eight-year-olds and I think there are better ways of handling it, but this woman can start by calling her son’s difficulties by their real name: he’s gay in a classroom full of horrible little boys.
Boys in coeducational schools are equally insulting and awful to the girls. Basically, ‘straight’ boys will insult and denigrate anyone who is a perceived threat to their masculinity. Once they are reassured of their own ‘masculinity’, they stop all that, though many of them never grow up, which is why you get grown men who beat up and denigrate women and spit on those they call ‘pufti’. But don’t forget, Aldo, that you and I are a whole generation older than the new young adults, for whom life is now very different, unless they have hopelessly ignorant parents and ‘friends’.]
As to politicians, including the Prime Minister, they have no issue with making an appearance at many a religious ceremony (also full of camp men dressed in skirts, may I point out), so what’s the problem with participating in this one? If the Prime Minister is conspicuous by his absence, one can’t blame the Leader of the Opposition in making the most of it.
[Daphne – Falsity is always objectionable, and that applies equally to politicians who go to mass without believing in it, and to politicians who feel the need to be seen at gay pride parades in the hope of grubbing around for another few votes.]
As to those wussies that come up with excuses for not standing up to those who wrong them, let them enjoy the gay pride parties, because I doubt very much they’ve thought it out well in their little heads. If it weren’t up to those who have stuck out their necks for them in the past, they’d still be hiding in the ghetto.
Gattaldo
“…why am I still having to constantly justify my marriage to a large part of the Maltese population?”
Because same-sex marriage goes against our culture. Surely you can see that. It has nothing to do with the state or – even less – religion. Marriage is basically a way of legitimising offspring and, as such, has no relevance in a homosexual relationship. I stand to be corrected on this as I’m not an anthropologist but I don’t know of any culture anywhere in the world where same-sex unions are considered and treated as equal to heterosexual marriages. Even in ancient Greece, where homosexuality hardly carried any stigma, same-sex marriages were not recognised.
Gattaldo, I’m sorry that you feel this way, and you are right to do so. Unfortunately our generation is so tarred against gays that nothing will change things, and our hope is only that the younger generation see your situation in an entirely different light.
[Daphne – Speak for yourself, Mario. I’m older than you are and I have no problem. The only problem I have is with homosexual people who insist on ghettoising themselves. So damned boring. It’s the equivalent of those heterosexual Noah’s Ark parties, where the animals go in two by two and you spend the entire evening speaking to somebody’s husband, then somebody’s wife.]
However, believe me, gay pride parades and out and out demonstrations of what you are, be it gay or whatever, is an in your face provocation in Malta, and it brings out the worst in people. I tend to agree with Mr Kind earlier in this blog. He seems to have accepted the situation but is still living the life he wants to lead.
My view is live and let live. Gay or heterosexual, if you want to live your life do so without imposing yourself and your views onto others in the mistaken belief that if you are vociferous about it people will change. They won’t. Attitudes take generations to change, and the gay movement must realise that it will take its time. In time, our society will accept civil partnerships, but forcing the general electorate to accept them prematurely will only damage your cause.
On the other hand, I do sympathise, which is the only thing I can do. I won’t hide the fact that I find the idea of gay pride marches disturbing, because I am uncomfortable with out and out anything, be it sexuality, or misguided environmentalism, and so on.
[Daphne – I guess you won’t have a problem with a women’s rights parade in which the women are all 20 and wearing tangas, though.]
But politicians who try and curry favour by going to places where they stand out like a sore thumb are worthless pieces of offal. They do more harm than good. The only good thing is that onlookers may be loath to pass denigrating comments because there are politicians present. But that’s it. Don’t think for a moment that any of them will embrace your cause. They won’t. It will cost them too many votes on the other side of the fence.
I would be, let’s say, mildly uncomfortable at such a prospect……
I am gay and I do not attend these parades. Why should I tell anyone passing by that I am gay. Imagine all the heterosexual people telling every passer-by or the whole of Xarabank’s audience that they are straight.
I have the same rights as any heterosexual man. So I can’t marry my partner but I’m not alone in this as there are hundreds of heterosexual couples who cannot marry. But they still live together and have sex and do whatever they want to do. I wish the gay lobby would stop trying to create the impression that gays in Malta have the status of slaves and that we are all ‘msieken’.
Other gays should not accuse me of being not ‘gay enough’ or a traitor to the cause. I want to lead a normal life.
That is exactly how gays (and I believe we should be using the term homosexual) should behave to obtain the social acceptance that they yearn for.
Outrageous behaviour being hetero or homosexual or asexual (e.g. excessive body piercing/tatooing) can only push people away.
It would have been a good idea to attend the Maltese version of the Gay Pride Parade just once before writing about it, because most of the people you assume attend never do – and that includes the crowd of screaming queens. There is generally not much of a crowd and no screaming at all. In fact, it tends to be a rather sombre do. The picture you chose to “get your message across” is anything but faithful to what the Maltese version of the Gay Pride Parade looks like, let alone what it represents, which makes me wonder why on earth you bothered to write this piece. But then there’s no such a thing as bad publicity.
And just in case you’re wondering: no, I won’t be attending. But I respect people’s right to organise a peaceful demonstration to stand up for what they believe in.
I am 16 years old and last year I saw the pride march as I walked in Paceville. Seeing all those people brave enough to go out in public made me feel much better about myself. It’s not a useless march and it helped other kids at my school when I told them because we have a lot of bullies who pick on me. Everyone was dressed normally.
[Daphne – Sweetheart (and I mean that), bullies don’t pick on people because they’re gay, straight, ugly, pretty, clever or stupid. They pick on them because they perceive that they’re easy to victimise. No bully is ever going to pick on a quietly confident person. So practise your quiet confidence, and don’t walk into rooms looking sheepish and fearful. Above all, don’t try to pacify those who bully you or attempt to disappear into the background. Practise telling them to f**k off, not just in words but through your whole demeanour. This is not just a lesson for school, but a lesson for life.]
oh for heaven’ s sake stop digging
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_5CR0LNoHQ
If Daphne Caruana Galizia wishes to take a brush to the leader of the opposition and paint him and his wife in the colours of cynicism and political opportunism then so be it. Taking aim at others while doing so is cheap, and you don’t have to criticize the Gay-Pride march to do it.
[Daphne – Funny how the Caruana Galizias all seem to be going down the yellow brick road to Labour. Must be the Mary Darmanin/Alfred Sant/Helen Tomkins factor. Your immediate ancestors are probably all rolling around in their graves in celestial embarrassment. Thank God for the blessed irony of an outsider Stricklandjana like me who rescues the lot of you from further humiliation. But enough said.]
What purpose a gay-pride march would serve is an important question and one worth asking. It is probably true that an event such as this will not change the hearts and minds of the so-called ‘conservative element in society’, but I don’t think that’s the point. I don’t think the objective is to gain the grudging acceptance of the obstinate and the prejudiced, those who would have us think that homosexuality is something shameful that should be covered up, that should be tolerated only if it remains hidden from the light of day, to exist only in darkness.
[Daphne – Come on, Anton. You’re what – five years older than my sons? I don’t see any of their gay friends running around under cover of darkness. Nor, I imagine, does your brother do that and he’s exactly the same age as they are. This is what so many people fail to understand: if you creep around, other people treat you like something that creeps around. If people are too conservative to accept you, there’s one solution: reject them. What’s the point of hanging around whining for others who are beyond conviction to turn around and love you for what you are? Life’s too short.]
It is those same attitudes that force homosexuals to live in anxiety and fear, to think of themselves as lesser beings, as naturally and irreparably flawed.
[Daphne – No, Anton. Usually, it’s parents, and not other people. The homosexuals who have problems are those who have been raised in ultra-conservative, traditional, religious households where ‘what our peers think’ is an over-riding factor that governs behaviour. Let’s put it this way: if I had been raised in that kind of household, it’s most unlikely that I would be doing this kind of thing today. Some parents have a hell of a lot to answer for: it’s not only their homosexual children who are raised in fear of what other people think.]
A gay-pride march dispels those dark and wrongful notions. It declares that there is nothing shameful or immoral or unnatural about homosexuality.
[Daphne – On the contrary, it declares precisely the opposite. If you want to be taken as normal, then behave normally. Believe me, nobody will even blink.]
That if you happen to be homosexual then you can be just that without having to hide it. It sends a message to those who may be coming to terms with their homosexuality that they can stop being ashamed and start being gay. It sends a message to those who want to label homosexuality as shameful that they will not get their way. Gay-Pride is Gay-Power.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, I have to disagree with you here. Homosexuals live in society. They are not a society within a society. The audience they have to address is not other homosexuals who are in the closet, but wider society. Wider society is best convinced through the entirely normal behaviour of going about your own business like everyone else. Around 20 years ago, one of my colleagues, a homosexual man around my age, was sacked from an advertising agency for turning up at a crucial client meeting wearing a silver string vest and low-slung leather trousers. “It’s because I’m gay!” he told me. “No,” I said. “It’s because you turned up to a client meeting in a silver string vest and tight leather trousers. If I were to turn up at a client meeting wearing a silver string vest and tight leather trousers, I too would be sacked – and I have a better figure than you do.” Well, at least he laughed.]
And if an event such as this is meant to be empowering then what better place to have it than the main thoroughfare of the country’s capital? If you can be gay in the middle of Republic Street you can be gay anywhere on these islands. You don’t have to wear the pink shirts or the body paint to participate. All you do is show up.
[Daphne – Anton, Anton, you can be gay anywhere already. Nobody’s looking. Nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn. Everyone is too wrapped up in their own lives and their own problems. The difficulty is only in homosexual people’s heads, and then only some.]
That, to me, is the positive aspect of a Gay-Pride march. As for what Daphne Caruana Galizia thinks, well: making assumptions and presenting them as facts from which you can extrapolate multiple contradictory interpretations, and then putting these interpretations forward as incontrovertible conclusions in support of political spin masquerading as an argument – I can’t find anything commendable in that.
[Daphne – No, you wouldn’t would you.]
And my girlfriend agrees with me.
Joseph is going to have a field-day next election fielding these renegade Caruana Galizia’s against you, Daphne.
[Daphne – That’s Mary Darmanin’s job. She’s been at it since 1996. You’d have thought she’d have let go of her passion for Alfred Sant and tried to regain a modicum of self-respect by now, but no. Kolla pezza wahda: Mary Darmanin, Marie Benoit, Astrid Vella….I’m beginning to see a pattern here.]
Kolla = glue
Kollha = all
Luke Kind I totally agree with you there! I’m gay too and I don’t think gay people lack any rights at law. I do not define myself by my sexuality but by my aspirations, relationships, knowledge and values that I hold.
It’s funny you say you don’t like parading, cause after all your blog is all a colourful parade. You deny the democratic right of minority groups to march and voice their plea only because you are a straight, white, privileged and upper-class female. Try putting yourself in someone else’s shoes for once and fall off your pedestal, then you can be of good to women, at least.
[Daphne – Calm down, ma’am. I’m a writer. I’m in no position to deny anyone their democratic rights. I would have to be a dictator to do that, not even a legislator (even if I wanted to, that is). Incidentally, I’m not white. I’m brown. Putting myself in a homosexual person’s shoes is precisely what is NOT needed here. Homosexual people in Malta who believe they are being actively discriminated against need some sense of perspective, and to do that, they need to stand outside themselves and really look. Something else: people don’t put themselves on pedestals. They are generally put there by others. I happen to be an extremely down-to-earth person. Ask around and don’t go on the basis of propaganda.]
Of course, not all LGBT persons are the same, just like not all heterosexuals are the same. Some of us choose to be open about who we really are, and others do not. Those who are out, are only being honest about themselves and who they love, just like every other heterosexual who wears a wedding band on their finger, my male friend who shall propose to his girlfriend, my work colleague who just got back from her honeymoon, or my parents who have been happily married for over 40 years.
Where’s the respect?
[Daphne – I don’t get your point, sorry. My point is that those who behave like a minority get treated like a minority. Why focus on your sexuality instead of your gender? As a woman you’re part of a much larger group than as a lesbian. I find it astonishing that so many homosexuals accuse heterosexuals of prejudice and leaving them out of things, then go right ahead and socialise only with other homosexuals and behave as though ‘married people’ – horrors – are an embarrassment to have around.]
The harsh truth is that partnership between men and women is so natural. Anything else is so unnatural.
[Daphne – Oh get off. Nylon and polyester are unnatural.]
What you mean is that you’re used to that setup, and never mind what happens in that ‘partnership’.
I’m not sure how the word “gay” came to be linked with homosexual men. If anything, these people were being subjected to all sorts of abuse and discrimination, while traditionally the word is used to describe someone who displays a happy and cheerful attitude. In this sense, we’re lucky to be blessed with a President, a Prime Minister, an Archbishop and a Leader of the Opposition who are of gay disposition.
Fred Flintstone is also gay – remember? – we used to have “a gay old time” with him as children. This is the one thing that annoys me about “gays” – how the word has been hijacked. The Gay Hussars, for example, were anything but “gay”. I once wrote a piece about an inebriated individual, who, at a wedding reception, “swung from the chandeliers in gay abandon.” I guess I’ll have to rephrase that in the next edition.
“The best way for homosexuals to be accepted by the more conservative elements of society, if this is what they really want, is to go about their business quietly like the rest of us do. It is not homosexuality that the average person can’t stand, but ‘look at me’ behaviour, and this applies to straight people too.”
Bull’s eye, Daphne!
Prosit, Luke Kind. I like the way you reason things out. When I worked with gay people, and as long as they did not impose their sexual orientation on us everything was fine. Then there were certain heterosexuals who put me off because all they could do was talk about sex or flirt with some tart all day long.
“as long as they did not impose their sexual orientation on us everything was fine” – and how could they have done that exactly?
You’re probably one of those people who thinks that just because I mention my partner I’m shoving my sexuality down your throat. You’d probably like us to sit down quietly in a corner and keep our gayness to ourselves, right?
[Daphne – Don’t take it personally. People with that kind of attitude feel the same about young people’s ‘modern’ habits, about women, about different attitudes towards religion. What upsets them isn’t homosexuality, but any challenge to their perceived, long-held notions of what is acceptable and what is not. Most Maltese people above the age of 40, and even many below that age, have been subjected to a very rigid upbringing, so rather than a head-on confrontation, you have to use patience.]
It is exactly this kind of attitude that gay marches and parades address, i.e. the shame that a lot of people would have us feel. The whole issue of invisibility/visibility is not, as Daphne tries to portray it, about wearing our sexuality on our lapels and defining ourselves by it, but being able, like everyone else, to be truthful about our lives. It’s being able, when your nanna and all your aunties ask you when you’re going bring a girlfriend home, to tell them that that’s never going to happen, although you might bring a boy. To a lot of people that’s trying to impose your sexuality. Too bad, you all have to deal with it. I was never one to lie about who I am.
[Daphne – This is where we part company. Good manners towards grandparents and aged aunts should never be ditched just so you can have the satisfaction of defiantly saying the truth. What is there to be gained from upsetting your grandmother? How can this ever be construed as good or desirable? A grandparent of a certain generation is never going to come round to your way of thinking. Let your grandmother live in hope – surely you can see that causing her distress just to avoid distress yourself is wrong and very selfish. It’s not only homosexuals who selflessly hide the truth from their aged parents/grandparents: I’ve known people who successfully hid from them for years the fact that their marriages had broken up. This isn’t hypocrisy, but an acknowledgement of the fact that some older people just can’t cope, and there’s no point is causing them unhappiness in the last years of their lives.]
Maybe I’m missing something here, but how does a gay pride parade or march make it ok to tell your grandmother and aunts that you won’t be bringing a girlfriend home? If your issues are within your family, public support won’t change that – assuming that a gay pride parade or march generates solely support, that is.
If being among like-minded people is what you’re after, then you’d be better off seeking out like minds, and not just those of a similar sexual disposition.
What I’m trying to say is that whether one is gay or straight, one should not make a nuisance of oneself. I hate it when people flaunt their sexuality and assume that I approve of their behaviour.
One crude example is when a gay ‘friend’ makes a show when he meets you: squeaky voice “Ara John, kif inti hi, kollox sew?” and then a big hug and probably an attempt of kiss from Lola! YUKK!
[Daphne – Not all gay men are screaming queens, John. And the screaming queens are a lot of fun if you ditch your hang-ups.]
Same applies to the heterosexual girl ‘friend’ doing the same thing above lipstick, cigarettes and all. Civility draws limits which such people don’t even bother to respect.
And why would I want to use patience when confronted with bigotry? On the one hand you say that we should stop being victims and then you tell us to be quiet and “have patience”. I think you should make up your mind. Did you have patience when you felt your rights were being violated under Labour administrations? Do you think that an employer should be able to ask you if you’re a Nazzjonalista and that in this case you should have patience and lie?
[Daphne – I can’t understand what you’re trying to say. Nobody should ever answer personal questions put to them by strangers, whether they’re homosexual or not. When people overstep the boundaries, the well-mannered response is to pretend not to have heard the question. On the other hand, it is extremely bad manners to upset others in conversation by ramming your sexual preferences down their throats when you perceive that they are unlikely to approve – whether it’s your grandmother or anyone else. This might be sex with somebody of your own gender, sex with somebody else’s husband or wife, or sex with three people at once. Keep it to yourself. Homosexuality bothers some people. Others, like me, are bothered by having to sit down to lunch with some man who’s left his wife, who happens to be an old friend of theirs, and the new girlfriend he’s brought along. If you think people are going to be upset, drop the subject. How hard is that? All this rubbish about lying…..]
As for the example I gave you, what is irritating is not that ‘nanna’ can’t stomach that you’re gay, it’s that as gay people we are confronted by similar situations on a daily basis, where people assume you’re straight and you’re faced with a decision: lie about who you are (and if eventually they find out they might interpret that as though you were ashamed of who you are) or telling the truth. I personally opt for the latter and surprisingly a lot of people even with their rigid upbringings treat you fairly when you are honest with them.
[Daphne – People are always going to assume things about other people, and it’s no use getting uptight about it. For example, I’ve never worn a wedding ring, but it never stopped people addressing me as ‘sinjura’, the assumption being that any woman with children in tow is married. I am married, but that was just their assumption made on the basis of woman + children. I could just as easily not have been.]
And this brings me to the connection with the gay march: people, as in the above situation, become more accepting when they meet gay people and they realise they’re just like everybody else (save some exceptions). When this ‘visibility’ (i.e. honesty about our sexuality and how it affects our lives) is multiplied (also by means of gay marches), society as a whole becomes more accepting, because what is society if not the sum of its members?
At last I managed to get my message across. Now it is up to the gay lobby to change its strategy. Just imagine heterosexual people organising a straight pride parade. It does not make sense. Also people semi-naked roaming Valletta give a bad impression of us. Once I attended a Gay Pride march in London and I was flabbergasted: the parade was more about the sexual aspect than proper relationships. It was degrading.
Evidently you’ve never been to a gay MARCH (not parade) in Valletta, or otherwise you’d know there were never semi-naked people there. Straight people don’t have to organise a march/parade because they can marry the person they love (or if they can’t because they’re separated, they at least had a shot at it) and they don’t have to pay a double premium on their life insurance just because they’re straight.
You’re probably one of those gay men who doesn’t lift a finger to help the cause and then goes around screaming bloody murder when he is discriminated against in something like this and bitching about how the gay rights group didn’t help him.
I do not need the gay rights group to help me. You pointed out the flaw in our society yourself, Mr Attard: separated straight couples are on the same level as us – they cannot marry again. We Maltese say they are ‘pogguti’. Marriage does not inhibit one guy from loving another and do not raise the money question because it doesn’t hold. Love has no boundaries. We have created a gay culture and thus we have segregated ourselves. I do not see the point in telling everyone that I am gay. Why should I tell my employer, the postman or the person at the cash-till in a shop that I’m gay?
It’s not about telling the postman. It’s about being truthful about yourself. If a colleague had to ask you whether you have a girlfriend, how would you answer?
[Daphne – If it were me, I would do what I always do when people ask rude and invasive questions: pretend not to hear them. What sort of person goes round asking colleagues whether they have a girlfriend? Exactly what sort of circles do you move in?]
In my opinion if you lie it means that you’re ashamed of yourself.
We might disagree on this, but that’s how I see it. If you really believe there’s nothing wrong with you, and you have some self-respect, then you wouldn’t lie, period. If they can’t deal with it, it’s their problem.
[Daphne – Anybody with self respect wouldn’t submit to invasive questions from strangers. Friends would know whether you have a girlfriend or not. Strangers have no right to ask. And this applies to heterosexuals too, incidentally.]
Gay pride marches redicule the ’cause’ of these persons. Can one imagine a gay manager who wears the best suits in his normal life marching half naked and adorned with ostrich feathers in the main street of our capital city? How can he gain respect from me?
One thing that some homosexuals (at least some of those commenting here) seem to not understand is that the ‘coming out’ of a gay person is of interest mainly to near relatives and close friends. The rest of society couldn’t care less.
Sometimes I suspect that some gays may actually take this obvious indifference as an affront. Being (or playing) a victim is unpleasant but maybe it can be addictive too.
My brother, your sons, my friends, members of our family, my ancestors – what do they have to do with the argument I made above?
[Daphne – It was an observation. I’m struck at the sudden swing to Labour among certain of the Caruana Galizias. I find it more amusing than anything else.]
I don’t represent my family, and neither do you.
[Daphne – Oh, I would never claim to represent your family. I would be far too embarrassed to do that, though I have taken note of the remark that you, like a few other individuals who shall go unnamed, like to think of it as YOUR family, rather than mine, despite the fact that a full three of the only five (four?) heterosexual male Caruana Galizias in the current generation are my sons, and that if it hadn’t been for me, well, then….]
If you want to make an argument you can do so without reference to them. Address yourself to me alone, because I’m the one pulling you up on this.
[Daphne – It’s a bit difficult to take you out of context, Anton, just as you clearly find it impossible to take me out of context. And not to put too fine a point on it, I’m getting more than a little tired of the various members of my husband’s extended paternal family going out of their way to lay into me, largely because, I suspect, they are sick, tired and more than a little jealous of being asked whether they are related to Daphne. In your position, I would do the decent thing and lay off.]
Voting Labour because I back a Gay-Pride march? If you want to discus my voting preferences with me I’m sure you know how to get in touch.
[Daphne – Feeling the urge to rush to the defence of Joseph Muscat and his desire to march in a Gay Pride parade, an urge not normally felt by clear-thinking people who are not Labour voters, and possibly not even by clear-thinking Labour voters?]
Here is an experiment for you, your friends, and anyone who reads this: if you happen to know a gay person, ask them if coming out was difficult.
[Daphne – Homosexuals have no means of comparison. They have only ever been homosexual. Hence, they do not know the pains of being 15, spotty, frizzy-haired, squat, bespectacled and rabidly, hormone-racingly heterosexual at a party where nobody fancies you and it seems like nobody ever will. Whether you’re homosexual or heterosexual, being 15, 16 and 17 is possibly the most traumatic period of anyone’s life. Few homosexuals need to come out: when they pluck up the courage to tell people, the usual response is: We’ve known for ages. Do you think people are blind? A heterosexual woman can usually identify a homosexual man at 50 paces, whether he’s in the closet or not. There are some exceptions, but they’re rare. This fear of coming out is all in the mind.]
And I reiterate my final point above – you don’t need to take aim at others to hit the targets you want to hit, Mrs Caruana Galizia.
[Daphne – Relax, Anton. You appear to be the one with the problem here. I’ve spent the last 25-odd years watching people come out of the closet. Watching paint dry is more interesting. Sometimes they come out of the closet and nobody even knew they were in there in the first place, and then they get upset because everyone took it for granted they were homosexual before they had said anything themselves.]
Re: “despite the fact that a full three of the only five (four?) heterosexual male Caruana Galizias in the current generation are my sons, and that if it hadn’t been for me, well, then….”
Gay couples can adopt children and carry on the name be it Caruana Galizia or a more ordinary Borg or Abela, thank you very much. In more civilised countries, that is.
[Daphne – Gay people can adopt children in Malta, too, as long as they do so as single women. I know of two such cases and one of them is a close friend of mine. The law does not allow men to adopt, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual, unless they are married to a woman. If homosexual Caruana Galizias wish to adopt children to carry on the family name, they can go right ahead and do so. It’s no skin off my nose and I don’t give a damn. I could of course be extremely rude in suggesting that it probably makes better genetic sense to adopt than to have one naturally, but of course, I won’t. As for your equation of adoption by gay couples with greater civilisation: I don’t think so. It has nothing to do with the greater or lesser extent of a country’s civilisation, and very few jurisdictions allow it.]
Daphne, your chances of becoming a gay icon are getting less and less by the minute…
[Daphne – I can’t see what I stand to gain by being a gay icon, or what I stand to lose by not being one. It’s all irrelevant to me.]
Oh yes it does. The more civilised a country is, the more its government treats its nationals, or in my case, residents, with respect and that means granting them equal rights before the law.
[Daphne – The Netherlands is an exceptional case: it doesn’t follow that all other states are uncivilised because they are not like the Netherlands. Everyone in Malta has equal rights before the law. We are in the European Union, remember. We can’t go around discriminating against people. You and I have precisely the same rights.]
How many jurisdictions allow it is not important. The vote to women started in a handful of countries and that did not make it less worthy, one assumes.
[Daphne – Please think clearly. A hundred years ago, women did not have the vote and men did. On the other hand, both men and women have the right to marry, now as then. You have the same right to marry as anyone else does. It’s your choice of partner that’s the problem, and in this you are no different to anyone else. You can’t marry a man and I can’t marry a woman. So we are equal at law.]
As for the gay icon part, it was completely tongue in cheek.
[Daphne – I hope it’s the sort of cheek I’m thinking of, and not the other kind.]
Daphne “Everyone in Malta has equal rights before the law” etc.
So how come single women are allowed to adopt, and not single men?
[Daphne – Because adoption law seeks to put the interests of the child before the interests of the prospective parent. Women are not driven to have sex with children, but apparently plenty of men are. For reasons that we needn’t go into here, the motives of a single man wishing to adopt a child – whether a girl or a boy – might very well be dubious, and the system seeks to avoid even the slightest risk to the child. You can never have a cast-iron guarantee, though, and that was made sickeningly obvious when a married couple were put on trial for the sexual abuse of two Romanian girls – aged something like five and six – who had been literally imported and adopted for the husband to have sex with, with his wife’s consent.]
I love the ‘Gejtu’ one.
Seems like a lot of gays are actually glums.
Where shall I begin? I am a 25-year-old gay person but I have never attended any gay pride parade. I live my sexuality and I never had any problem at work or wherever. Having said that, there will always be people who try to mock you, but if you don’t victimise yourself, you will never be a loser.
I am not affected by what others think of me: they can kiss my b*tt as far as I’m concerned. I agree 100% with Daphne’s argument about bullying: bullies derive their strength from others’ weaknesses.
And as for the Malta Labour Party or PL, how can any gay man vote for a party that, prior to the EU referendum, permitted a poster with the words “tivvutawx Iva ghax ikun hawn iz-zwieg omosesswali” to be hung on the facade of its Zurrieq kazin?
I am grateful that I am a gay man on an island where the majority just lets you live in peace. You only have to look at Italy: none of my Italian gay friends have come out, but almost all my Maltese gay friends are out.
[Daphne – I can’t think of anything worse than trying to come out of the closet in a culture where it’s all about boobs and butts and Michelin-tyre lips and vallette and prime ministers whose approval rating goes up along with his reproductive member. Italian sexual culture is just ghastly.]
The reason why Lawrence Gonzi will not be attending has nothing to do with the fact that he has better things to do and a lot to do with his personal (and the PN’s) very socially conservative views.
[Daphne – I said it’s almost certainly because, like me, he can’t stand posturing, and not because he has better things to do. I find it interesting that Muscat, who was too busy to attend the ceremonies to mark the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day (even the US president, in the throes of an election campaign, managed that one), and too tied up to go to the president’s farewell dinner or to turn up on time for a face-off with the prime minister, is going to – miraculously – find himself able to turn up at 10am on a Saturday morning to march with homosexuals for whom he has absolutely no intention of legislating for civil partnership. It’s called shallow opportunism.]
I get the impression that at best Gonzi views gays as a nuisance to be approached and promised something once every five years.
[Daphne – That’s how most people see homosexuals, and this includes the leader of the Opposition. Anybody who wants something they can’t realistically be given is a nuisance, gay or straight.]
Read what I wrote. At no point did I contest your assertion that Joseph Muscat is being politically opportunist.
Read what I wrote carefully. At no point did I criticise you personally or your immediate family. I read your argument and discovered that it is not a serious one. Your problem with Gay-Pride marches is that people dress funny and act weird – hardly convincing is it.
Well, this is your webpage, go on and have the last word.
Best.
Well done Anton Caruana Galizia.
Do not feel intimidated by any attacks on your relatives.
You have good arguments which others can only attack by going personal.
Unfortunately that is the way a few short sighted PN diehards – such as DCG – treat anyone who is Labour or even those PN supporters who do not see anything perverse in supporting Joseph Muscat, who is not exactly the devil incarnate.
You have my support.
[Daphne – There you go, Anton. Here you have further confirmation that your message was interpreted as being a politically motivated one from somebody sympathetic to Joseph Muscat, though I must admit I remain mystified as to the identity of ‘your relatives’.]
Hah ara min irida tal-liberali. You’re all the time complaining that Labour is not progressive, and than you come out with such crap. By the way I’m not gay.
[Daphne – No, and you didn’t eat the last biscuit either.]
I think the funniest thing about gays is the need to parade to raise their own pride. Some of the greatest thinkers and doers were gay so just be proud about them.
Why should a gay person take pride in the fact that some of the greatest thinkers were also gay? Does this one characteristic they share mean they have some kind of bond with each other? Like many of those who attend gay pride parades, you too give far too much importance to sexual orientation.
I find the Maltese Pride march (and the MGRM committee members who look like a bunch of dykes) so pathetic.
The Mario Debonos may have an aversion to gay people because they visualise gay people as being the screaming queens with the limp hand. Little do they realise that actually this is a small minority of gay people who choose to behave as such.
The majority of gay people go about their lives in a very normal way, with or without a partner, just like heteros do. There are so many gay people in important positions, be it in business, government entities, professions etc, who people won’t recognise as being gay, not because they are closeted, but because they don’t flaunt it.
However one has to caution that coming out to family could be very traumatic for some youngsters, and bullying at school is a problem.
Perhaps most on this blog have not not been in contact with the “stereotype gay” in other countries, who typically does gym three to four times a week, “rgiel ta’ veru” who any woman would love to date.
[Daphne – You tell them, David. I just part company with you on the bit about women loving to date six-pack man from the gym. That’s actually the very type we’re just not interested in, unless we’re 21 and a bit naive.]
The same applies to lesbians; some of the most attractive women are gay, but the lesbians visible in Malta are the dykes. The gay prides in major cities have evolved into a carnival street party, and nothing to do with gay rights. Just visit gay pride in Madrid attended by about one million people. It’s a blast of a party for both gays and straights, and nothing to do with the prime minister, leader of the opposition or the trade unions.
Just like Christian of EastEnders. It looks like he’s been to the gym regularly.
[Daphne – Funny you should say that. He’s exactly what I had in mind: totally unappealing to women. Did you see the – shock, horror – Muslim/’Christian’ (literally) homo/hetero kiss? They’re really pushing at those boundaries.]
Christian of Eastenders is very unappealing to many gay men as well. The storyline gets worse, by the way.
The argument seems to have gone slightly off course… so to get back on track: gay parades or marches are useless. Some gay people have a hard time accepting themselves, and this is also the case for the “out of the closet” ones. Some are also self-centred. Who cares who you go to bed with? Do you think that Joseph (ghajjtuli Joseph, dak li in-nanna hadithu il-meeting tal-lejber – ehe dak) will lift a finger? Although I do not share his political beliefs, I must admit that to me he is good looking (bear-type, blond, blue eyes, etc). He is definitely gay material – and I don’t even care what his orientation is. He does love to make a fool out of himself though, and that makes him a drag/drama queen.
[Daphne – “He is definitely gay material”: I’m glad you said that, because I was kind of reluctant to mention it myself again. When he was first elected leader, I had written that his communication style is flirtation. He flirts with men in the same way as he does with women, and because straight men are so unused to being flirted with by ostensibly straight men, they are nonplussed and even succumb. If he were what they think of as a pufta they would thump him or avoid him, or feel creeped out, but because he’s got ic-certifikat taz-zwieg u t-twins, they respond to him in almost exactly the same way they do to a woman. It’s absolutely fascinating. I love watching it. I’d even made the observation that Muscat is more appealing to men than he is to women. Women pick up something ‘asexually bland’ about him, or rather, what comes across to us as asexual – we get no ‘testosterone messages’ at all, which is odd. His relationship with his wife comes across as one of those sorts in which, in the past, he would have called her ‘mother’. His incipient fans had criticised me for that one, but it’s really so obvious. You’ve only got to watch him for a few minutes to work it out. I’ve noticed, too, that the only writers who have described Muscat as appealing in a Coccolino bear kind of way (you’ve done it, too) are men.]
‘He flirts with men in the same way as he does with women’
I don’t think that he flirts with women. I’d rather say that more often than not he stares at them. Have you noticed?
[Daphne – No chemistry there.]
On your blog somewhere I read that women can tell a gay man from 50 steps away… gay/curious men have what are called “gaydars” (radars) and can recognise gay material from miles away.
[Daphne – Not all women can recognise a gay man. Some women go out with gay men for years, and others marry them, though I must say that some of the latter cases were so heavily disguised that I can’t blame them for not noticing. The women that really fox me are those who marry really camp men – what on earth are they thinking?]
I see Muscat as a “yestergay” or “stromo” check out http://www.gaymalta.com/terms/terms.html “STROMO: A gay man with the style and demeanor typically associated with heterosexual or straight men.”
You’re right – men like him more than women do, but that won’t earn him my vote.
He certainly fits the bill: only, doted-on son of older parents, mrobbi qisu l-Bambin dejjem mal-mama u n-nanna, curiously asexual manner of relating to his wife, spends as much time away from home as possible, especially when an MEP – ma nafx, jien. Guess the politics is all about sublimation.
Dr Mark Grech isn’t doing us any favours. The well-meaning members of the gay community do not deserve this. Self-pity is not what we need. We need to 1) truly accept ourselves, 2) stop bitching each other (the community is sooooooo bitchy; allahares ikollok xaghra mhux f’postha ghax issib xi regina u taghmel show bik), 3) live and let live.
Hey, I would be the first to agree with you if it was all about ‘live and let live’ and not ghettoising ourselves. But some of us increasingly believe in the principle of equality and the attainment of rights, so we are willing to put our necks on the line.
I have come to the conclusion that being ‘invisible’ is to have our rights ignored, so I want to put my money where my mouth is. And yes, there is a price to pay for that.
[Daphne – Have you just been reading a book about cliches, by any chance?]
This is not about self-pity. It is about self respect. And this is my personal viewpoint. I also felt I needed to refute this mad stereotype that all gay men are raving queens and hairdressers, but that we encompass all sections of society including the professions.
I wish there wasn’t the need to make this point but in the snobbish culture of Malta, where your value seems to be intrinsically linked to your title or profession, there still seems to be the need.
So I don’t define myself at all by being gay. Nor by being a doctor. I’ve come to value personal qualities like friendship, trust and honesty more and more these days. But I made the judgement that I can better advance equality issues, about which I believe passionately, by being more visible and involved. And that’s all I’m doing.
Mark, we all have to pay a price for living the very life we want to live. That’s simply how life works. There is no need to demonstrate our sexuality every second of the day.
There is no such a thing as a ‘one size fits all’ life. As I always say: life and love is not for cowards.
I am one of only a handful of female stonemasons/stone carver/sculptors on this planet. Proper German education with certificates and all the fancy decors. I got my degree 25 years ago and until this day I have to face cut-and-dried opinions. Apart from the usual hogwash like ‘oh, you really don’t look like a hulk’ or ‘she definitely must be a lesbian’ (both: not at all) or ‘look, she does wear skirts and dresses ( yep, I do – you know heavy brogues and dirty trousers are not stylish enough after a while), you can imagine that it is hard for a woman to find a job as a stone carver – I’ve got excellent degrees, by the way – and that has nothing to do with being physically weak, which is a typical excuse by men who feel threatened by a woman stepping into ‘their’ domain.
I can assure you, those guys give you a tough time when you enter their territory and sexism is the mildest way of their bullying. Apart from that my family is multinational and we had to overcome plenty of obstacles. My life has never been a stereotypical one. – in no way.
And you know what? It neither crossed my mind to parade in a flashy bikini on a float to demonstrate that I am allowed to vote, to open a bank account without a man’s permission, quitting my job without my husband’s say-so or studying at university, nor did I play the victim.
And I do not feel invisible at all, even if I get the strange feeling creeps, once in a while, that I do not lead a mainstream life. But who does?
Which equality issues ?
@ Andrea: you’ve never had to parade because there were braver women before you who did all of that for you. That’s the whole point. Most gender inequalities have been addresssed legally, though social prejudice and discrimination still exist. For gays, this still hasn’t happened; hence the need to march.
Dear Mark, I cannot understand exactly what rights gay people want. I understand that gay people who love each other want to seal their bond in front of society. I would call this a ‘union’. But are gay couples expecting the right to adopt children who are pro-created by a different (heterosexual) union?
Wherever possible, society needs children to be born and brought up in the natural environment of a heterosexual couple. Nature itself does not let gay couples pro-create. A really good economist once made me realise that children are the best resource for our economy,”that is why we give stipends to our students” the economist emphasised.
I think that society or “the common good” wouldn’t gain anything from a gay marriage. So as far as the welfare state is concerned I cannot see any ‘”rights” for gays in this field. The welfare state encourages through social benefits heterosexual marriage because that’s the only means we can get our main economical resource. In a scenario of a country without children being born an economy would be doomed to collapse.
I see an advantage in civil partnership for one of the partners of a gay couple if s/he is kicked out of the house owned by the other party. Automatic inheritance rights come also to mind. I cannot agree more with this type of legal right which can be extended to a brother-sister relationship.
One has to keep in mind that the legislator’s biggest concern is the common good. There are many ‘injustices’ which people suffer in the name of the “common good”, and amongst them there are heterosexuals.
Life is tough for everybody.
@C.Attard
Believe me, a woman still has to be brave in a man’s world, these days, as for example there still is a gender wage gap in a modern country like Germany. And my point was that the suffragettes didn’t parade in string tangas in order to fight for their rights. That would have been counterproductive and absurd. I wouldn’t want to trivialise the great achievements of the women’s liberation movement by dancing away in a kinky carnival costume.
Quite apart from the fact that the distinction between the prohibition of sodomy and homosexual acts is strained at best, the fact is that it was not only sodomy that was illegal (and in several former British colonies still is), but also “unnatural offences” and “gross indecency between male persons”. It is therefore undeniable that there existed/s both overt and thinly veiled legal discrimination against homosexuals.
[Daphne – You’re thinking like a man, I’m afraid, and leaving women out of the loop. “Overt and thinly veiled legal discrimination against homosexuals” – you’ve forgotten that not all homosexuals are men. There is no mention of gross indecency between women here. Why? It’s not because the Victorians knew nothing of lesbians, but because what they had in mind was precisely sodomy.]
See M Kirby, ‘Legal discrimination against homosexuals – a blind spot of the Commonwealth of Nations?’ (2009) European Human Rights Law Review 21.
“Denying persons of a minority class the right to sexual expression in the only way available to them, even if that way is denied to all, remains discriminatory when persons of a majority class are permitted the right to sexual expression in a way natural to them. During the course of submissions, it was described as ‘disguised discrimination’. It is, I think, an apt description. It is disguised discrimination founded on a single base: sexual orientation.”
Leung T.C. William Roy v Secretary for Justice (HK) [2006] 4 HKLRD 211 at [48]; [2006] HKCA 106 at [48].
[Daphne – Yes, Justin, that’s why that particular law was rescinded rather long ago, and why there were no prosecutions for generations before that. Adulterers faced criminal prosecution, too – did you know that? It was the climate of the times, and it had nothing to do with the special victimisation of homosexuals. After all, nobody – including the law – gave a damn about lesbians. But in the male world view – including the male world view of homosexuals – the word ‘man’ encompasses everyone. So that’s an interesting twist to think about: that the law discriminated against male homosexuals leaving the lesbians to do as they pleased. Iss hej, mhux fier.]
Oscar Wilde comes in from the cold…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1200167/Vatican-does-U-turn-praise-Oscar-Wilde.html
You are so right, Daphne. May I add: gay Maltese, particularly young gays, would be better served by a serious gay lobby that addresses the real problems gay people face in Malta. While there is legal equality for gays, there is still stigma and bullying of gay young men and women in schools, sport clubs and other places where young people mix. This is what surveys by the MGRM have found. Posturing in pink in gay pride parades is definitely not addressing these problems, and possibly making them worse, portraying gay people (particularly gay young men) as silly.
Biex tingħeleb l-injuranza hemm bżonn l-edukazzjoni. F’kull issue li jkun hawn din is-sentenza tagħmel ħafna sens. Hija ħaġa kerha li fl-iskejjel tagħna u f’postijiet oħra nisimgħu u naraw diskriminazzjoni fuq nies li huma ta’ kulur, fuq nies li huma bojod, fuq nies li għandhom difett u fuq oħrajn li m’għandhomx. Id-diskriminazzjoni issir fuq min issir hija dejjem ħażina.
Jekk jien bħala individwu qed niġi iddiskriminat għandi kull dritt bħala ċittadin Ewropew u Dinji li nwassal il-libell fl-ogħla awtoritajiet. U min hemm wieħed irid jibda. Iżda jekk sfortunatament dawn ma jisimawkx allura hemm bżonn li b’mod ċivili twassal messaġ li int qed tiġi iddiskriminat u għalhekk f’ pajjiżi demokratiċi hemm liġi li taċċetta li jsiru dimostrazzjonijiet jew protesti.
Lili personali ma taffettwanix jekk fil-belt kienx hemm Gay Parade jew id-dimostrazzjoni bil-bambin tal-Museum. Jinterresani biss li kull individwu għandu drittijiet l-istess.
Naħseb li wieħed għandu jiġġielled għad-drittijiet tal-bniedem, u l-enfasi fuq ir-rispett lejn għajrek, u lejn ħutek il-bnedmin.
Hija ħasra li niżżufjetaw b’nies li forsi ma niklassifikawomx bħala ‘normali’. Il-ħajja sfortunatament hekk hi ‘taqla u tagħti’ u tgħix fi fraternita li wieħed jgħin lil ieħor u jaqsam ġidu u mħabbtu flimkien hija biss utopia.
Il-kliem tagħna ma tantx jgħin għax jekk xi ħadd jinsik tgħidlu…mela jien iswed, u jekk ma jżommx kelmtu…tgħidlu li ma kontx pufta….. u xi ħadd biex jinki lil xi ħaddieħor jgħidlu…gay (jekk naqra pulit :P) …u jekk bin-nuċċali (bħali)…qauttrocchi ….u jekk l-għalliem jisma’ l-għajjat fil-klassi…jgħid mela torox jew!!! u kumplament ta’ kliem li jweġġgħu lin-nies…. u dan l-aħħar daħlet oħra fost iż-żgħar….jgħidulek hemm ara x’ waqagħlek u kif tħares jgħidulek il-gay card!! u kulħadd jidħaq. U anki l-kelma ħandikkapat għada tintuża ħafna fl-iskejjel u jien ngħallem fi skola li suppost hija tal-puliti u l-intelletwali.
Jekk nibdew minnha stess inkunu aktar attenti għal dawn il-kliem li huma popolari u li jweġġgħu, u ngħallmu lil uliedna biex jużaw kliem aħjar jew ma jużawhomx inkunu qed nagħmlu ħafna ġid u innaqqsu ħafna uġiegħ lil tant nies…..(niftakar kemm kont inweġġgħa meta jgħajjruni għax bin-nuċċali….u xi kliem bħala ….mela għami…jew mela ma tarax!!)
Grazzi