I just dug out a link to research on LGBT suicide in America, I have come accross similar research in the UK recently and I cannot imagine that the risk factors in Malta would be substantially different. i.e.

•lack of family support
•increased victimization experiences (bullying, abuse)
•rejection by peers, adults, faith community
•negative coming out experiences
•homophobia/transphobia, and heterosexism

from http://www.yspp.org/about_suicide/gay_lesbian.htm

I agree that the major seeds of suicidal ideation are probably sown in the immediate care environment and during upbringing, but I believe the state has a duty of care towards those ‘vulnerable’ or at the least, at higher risk – and certainly should address anything within its remit that panders to homophobia, or even heterosexist bias (es well as, rightly, gender bias etc). Just because you and I have grown a thick skin around blatant misogyny/bigotry inside and outside government, doesn’t mean it’s right. I for one would like to see how Labour spin would translate into action if elected.

I appreciate what you are saying generally though. I think my view and yours both have merits, neither are any more logical than the other, and we could certainly keep rebutting these arguments back and forth ad infinitum.

I have a feeling that the sheer hatred you feel for anything remotely related to the Mintoff years is as raw, personal and justified as the animosity I feel towards the PN and Catholic church and both my and your arguments appeal to logic, but are fed by emotions which cannot win any argument either way.

As for the old sahhara tal-bidnija comments (yes I used to listen to Manuel Cuschieri as a young Alfred Sant admirer, and used to read that pseudo-satirical commentary by can’t remember who on l-Orizzont)… I never thought they were appropriate, but then again, some witches are good, some witches are bad… says more about the person who tries to attach such a label than it does about the recipient.

Incidentally, if you could cast a spell or two to influence me winning tonight’s Euromillions I’d apreciate it. :)

I jiust spent half hour writing a reply and it didn’t get submitted… bit of a pain, hopefully this goes through.

[Daphne – It went into Spam but I found it. Both have been uploaded. My views are in the other comment.]

I was trying to say I was meant to write ‘tolerance’ in inverted commas because I was referring to your implication of what Joe Muscat means – and comparing it with what the PN has on offer I would still go for that. In particular, the PN is aligned with the church, which preaches homexuality is a perversion – why would a LGB or T person with an ounce of self respect want to be a part of a political party which does not denounce that?

As for your argument that underrepresented minorities do not need ‘preferential treatment’ you are wrong on so many grounds. I used to share your same view until i realised I had merely internalised the collective homophobia your generation tacitly cultivated.

Here’s a few reasons why I believe the PN has failed LGBT people – you might feel I should keep such whining in my handbag while I cross my legs and wear my makeup ready to go to G-A-Y in Astoria – but please allow me.

A gay couple in Malta cannot adopt, they cannot get married or be automatically recognisable as spouses if widowed . Trans people are not allowed to marry thanks to PN government objection. There is no national program in education aimed to tackle homophobic bullying, in fact being gay is still taught as a sin using government money in RE classes.

There are more issues but I need to go to bed for work tomorrow. Gladly I know my employer sees positive discrimination is a good thing, and diversity and equality go hand in hand and need promoting. It would be really nice if these PN MP and PN councillors decided to move on with the times, instead of colluding with the church and party, but what are the odds of that happening?

In the meantime, Joe Muscat offers some future hope of progress, where so little was made (in Malta) over the decades of status quo.

That final ‘tolerance’ was meant to be in inverted commas – it you who is implying Joe Muscat would be ‘tolerant’ of gays whereas I was saying even if he were just being ‘tolerant of gays’ – and that included further advancement of the LGBT agenda, it would still be preferable than what the PN has to offer (more of the same).

My primary point still is – a party that is first and foremost affiliated with a church, which in itself sees homosexuality as an abherration will never be able to portray itself as the party LGBT people should vote for – and the recent case of the trans lady who wasn’t allowed to marry a man further fuels that impression.

[Daphne – The Nationalist Party is not affiliated to a church. Some of its most prominent members are outspoken Roman Catholics. The party is something apart. The current status of the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party in respect to the Roman Catholic Church is exactly the same. The transgender woman – we have (thank heavens for that) separation of powers in Malta. That is not a government decision, and certainly not a Nationalist Party decision.]

I used to think like you ‘gays rights don’t need championing, we don’t need special treatment, we shouldn’t have gay bars etc… then I realised I had internalised the endemic homophobia around which I grew up. The arguments you provided suggest to me that you would be quite happy with the status quo. Any gay members of parliament or councillors are equally colluding with this status quo unless they are voicing frustration with such discrimination.

[Daphne – I keep mentioning the fact that I’m a woman to remind you that I know what I’m talking about and that women were there first and had it far, far worse than gay men. Gay men had all the rights men had, which was a whole lot more than women did, gay or straight. Governments/parliament can change laws. They cannot change attitudes. As a woman I can tell you that despite acts of law on equal opportunities and equal rights, which have brought us 100% in line with men on paper, attitudes are much slower to change and prejudice and bias continues to exist. The government, the Opposition, parliament can do nothing about this. You cannot go into people’s minds and transplant new attitudes. You just have to stick to your guns and get on with it. Look at the way my enemies describe me as a witch, for example, as though we’re living in pre-Enlightenment days. Where do you think that comes from, if not from really deep-rooted misogyny in an essentially primitive Mediterranean culture? Can you see it happening in Sweden? Can the government do anything about it? Parliament? No. You can legislate against acts of misogyny, but you can’t stop people being misogynists – and in the Mediterranean, women are almost greater misogynists than men.]

Furthermore, until a union between Adam and Steve in Malta has the same legal recognition as Adam and Eve (including adoption rights)…

[Daphne – Oh come on, not even some of the most liberal democracies in the world have gay marriage. And you expect Malta to do so? Please. As for adoption, there are things you need to understand about our adoption laws. They do not differentiate between gay and straight, married or not married. They differentiate between men and women. Single women are allowed to adopt, even if they are lesbians. Single men are not allowed to adopt, and this is not a function of their sexuality but of their gender. The law does not place babies and young children in the hands of men who are not the biological father, unless there there is a woman in the picture.]

….until homophobic bullying is addressed as a problem in schools and until children are no longer being brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is a sin in state sponsored RE classes (and more)…

[Daphne – At the school my sons went to, children were not brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is wrong or a sin. I don’t know what schools you have in mind. If it’s church schools, quite frankly I don’t know why anybody would want to send their children there anyway before the age of 16, unless it’s because it’s free and independent schools are expensive.]

There will be a need for a re-balancing act in the form of public PR excercises and other incentives. As long as gay teenagers and young adults keep being over-represented in suicide tallies it will still be required. But wait, no statistic of that nature exists in Malta, I wonder why?

[Daphne – If there are no statistics, how do you know they are over-represented? In my experience, the fear and self-hatred of young gay people comes from the home environment and nothing else. How you imagine any government can do anything about what is essentially a deep-rooted cultural problem is quite beyond me – not anything more than public information campaigns, anyway, and that would make us seem even more backward than we are. Imagine: ‘HOMOSEXUALITY IS NORMAL AND BIOLOGICAL. IF YOUR SON IS GAY, ACCEPT HIM. THESE ARE THE SIGNS OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN YOUR SON xxxxxxxx. THESE ARE THE SIGNS OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN YOUR DAUGHTERxxxxx’. I cringe at the thought.]

Whether it is seen as preferential treatment or not or whether you feel this is being ‘unreasonable’, I’m being a ‘demanding queen’ or am just throwing a hissy fit is irrelevant to tell you the truth.

[Daphne – Total, absolute and utter bollocks, if you’ll excuse my language. The Nationalist Party (just as I do, incidentally, which is why I understand and appreciate the outlook) IGNORES sexual inclinations and does not consider them an issue. It is actually the opposite of liberal to treat homosexuals as special cases. The Nationalist Party does not promote LGBT rights because LGBT rights are human rights. You might not have noticed – perhaps because gay men don’t necessarily wear tight jeans and feather boas and gay women don’t necessarily wear boiler-suits – that being homosexual hasn’t stopped people rising right through the Nationalist Party structure. It is also the only party with an openly homosexual MP and an openly homosexual councillor. The Labour Party, on the other hand, apparently prefers its homosexuals to be married to people of the opposite sex, while corralling the rest in a ‘special needs’ LGBT group.]

I can sympathise with your rage against the Mintoff years – I didn’t experience those myself so sympathy is the furthest I can go.

As a gay man who lived his teens in the PN 90s though, my experience of the state during those times was of a ‘tolerant’ but hostile patriarchy which would rather things stayed the same as they had always been. I never expected any more from a conservative party either.

[Daphne – That had nothing to do with the government or either political party. That’s the way Maltese society was. Political parties can change society far less than society can change political parties. Twenty years ago, leaving your spouse was a big scandal too, and having a child outside marriage was a really big deal. But it wasn’t because of the government, was it. Same with homosexuality. Labour decriminalised sodomy (some people call it ‘decriminalised homosexuality’, as though sodomite = homosexual) but did we see gay parades and gay clubs and people coming out of the closet? No, we did not. You’d have thought there were no homosexuals in Malta in the 1970s and 1980s.]

When comparing the PN and MLP you are somehow implying that the PN is a better choice to vote for if you hold LGBT rights dear. The PN’s track record shows otherwise. The MLP at least offers some hope in having a younger leader who does not fear the wrath of God in portraying himself as the LGBT choice. This might all be spin and you might have a strong dislike of Joe Muscat, but even that spin suggests to me that the MLP is at the least, a party that is aware of a dire vaccum LGBT people have experienced for decades.

[Daphne – I tend to be one of those people who looks at the facts and doesn’t bother with the words. I see the PN promoting homosexuals because sexuality is not an issue (isn’t this the goal – for sexuality not to be an issue? So why do you want special treatment?) and I see Labour creating play-pens called LGBT Labour and behaving as though people need to be treated differently because they are homosexual. I also see a couple of very camp Labour men who have wives as beards and I don’t like that – not because it’s any of my business what people do, but because when people are forced to live dishonest lives the dishonesty spreads to other spheres. Homosexuals do not live in a vacuum in Malta. That’s ridiculous. If life is tough in the village, it certainly isn’t in Sliema and St Julian’s, and that’s only a few miles away. I find it really surprising that some homosexual people say they want to be treated like everyone else and then get annoyed because they are – because what they really want is special treatment. But don’t get me started on that please. All I know is that if I were homosexual I would certainly not want to join something called an LGBT group. I don’t even join women’s groups. I think of these things as victim support groups not empowerment groups.]

I can’t speak for women’s rights, or ethnic minorities. I am speechless about Joe Muscat’s stance on immigrants and I won’t try excuse it. But as far as LGBT rights go, Joe Muscat’s tolerance is manna compared to the PN alternative.

[Daphne – Tolerance? Is that what you want – tolerance? Talk about aiming low. Speaking as a woman – a member of a group of people that has historically ranked far, far lower than gay men because gay men are above all MEN – I can tell you that I would walk on hot coals rather than write a sentence like ‘Joe Muscat’s tolerance for women is manna’. Women, homosexuals, we’re PEOPLE – we’re not here to be tolerated by straight men. Please. Come on. You’re better than that. Why do you want people to tolerate you? Why don’t you go at it from the opposite angle: you tolerate THEM? I don’t like your victim attitude. And this is a Maltese woman speaking – again, remember that we rank lower than gay men. Do you watch Mad Men? Well, all gay men should: it will teach them not to complain because compared to women your lot have had to put up with nothing. And that was the United States in the 1960s, but it’s still very much like that in Malta among people of certain sorts of backgrounds and of a certain age. The most common question I got when I started writing a newspaper column in 1990: “Does your husband write them for you?” “Does your father help you write them?” MALTA IN 1990.]

First off I have to face-palm to the above and then I have to rhetorically ask: so by your reasoning Gonzi (for the record, a former president of none other than the Malta Catholic Action) is, what, the new face of liberalism in Malta?

[Daphne – No, why would he be? He’s been in politics for years and there’s nothing new about him. I always knew that Dr Gonzi would trip up on divorce, because it is the one issue on which he utterly fails to be rational and clear-headed, and where he is at odds with the essence of the Nationalist Party’s approach. That does not change the fact that the party he leads freed the country – and really freed it. Freedom does not come from divorce laws and gay marriage. Under Mintoff, parliament legislated for civil marriage and decriminalised sodomy (NOT HOMOSEXUALITY, for heaven’s sake), but did this make Malta free and liberal between 1971 and 1987? No. It was a horrible prison. Ask me about it. I lived there. And I suspect you might have done so too, but prefer to ignore that bit.]

Last I checked, the PN, together with its concubine, the Curia, opposed the decriminalisation of homosexuality back in the 70s, gave a blank cheque to the Curia for authority about marriage legislation in the 90s and, last but not least, have recently reaffirmed their long-standing stance against the introduction of divorce legislation. That’s not even mentioning the recent religious hogwash by Austin Gatt and Tonio ‘tad-Duluri’ Fenech in which they disclosed how all of their votes in parliament and political actions are a natural consequence of their religious conscience, much to the detriment of their civic role and responsibilities.

[Daphne – 1. The Curia is no more the PN’s concubine than it is Labour’s. Why did not MIntoff bring a divorce bill before the house concurrently with his civil marriage bill in 1975? Not because he was the Archbishop’s concubine, but because he had absorbed one crucial lesson from the British in the maintenance of their wide-reaching empire: if you wish to have the minimum of trouble from the people you govern, don’t tamper with their religious beliefs. People will put up with anything, but when a ruler touches their religion, that ruler is finished. What did for Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, ultimately, was his attack on church schools. Sixteen years of abuse and trampling on rights and freedoms, and that cracked it. In 1975, people in general did not understand anything about separation of church and state. They were one to them. Civil marriage could be sold as a necessary alternative to marriage in churches, but divorce? No.

4. The MPs: I agree with you. Where we part company is on how you select your MPs: you focus on the religious ones, I focus on the others.]

At most, I would have expected them to say that they tolerate him.

You can’t insult some people’s intelligence because they haven’t any.

[Daphne – You must be joking. On the contrary, I am proud of it. The Nationalist Party is quintessentially liberal – hence Malta’s amazing transition in 20 years from a clone of Hoxha’s Albania to a member of the Eurozone. The championing of the rights, liberties and dignity of the individual, and the belief that the individual should not be sacrificed to some notion of the common good, are CENTRAL to PN policy and have been so since for as long as I have been politically aware. It is the Labour Party which, again as long as I have been politically aware, has been illiberal, totalitarian in its thinking and policies, and manifested/s complete disregard for the individual, preferring instead ‘the common good’. The prospects of my generation, for example, were sacrificed completely to the ‘common good’, then interpreted as the kaxxa ta’ Malta. Because the common good was more important than the individual, we led lives deprived of ordinary commodities which others took for granted, so that ‘the common good’ could be served through a protectionist economy. The same illiberal party fought tooth, nail and claw against EU membership, because this would mean the end of Malta as an experimental lab for the Labour Party. So yes, I am extremely proud of having supported the Nationalist Party and of never having made the incredibly stupid and short-sighted mistake, like some people I know, of voting for illiberal, intolerant, backward Labour. The Nationalist Party’s stance on divorce is totally at odds with its political thinking generally. It is NOT representative of the way the party thinks and that is why so many PN supporters – the thinking sort, like me – will be voting against the party line. Support for divorce, on the other hand, does not make Labour liberal, because it still does not understand basic rights and freedoms.]

Penning down another article about how ‘worse’, in your opinion, the PL is will not undo this paradoxical stance of yours, you know. This piece oozes cognitive dissonance from every pore.

[Daphne – That’s probably because you started out prejudiced and don’t know much about politics. You might even be one of those people who think liberal = sex. It doesn’t. Divorce is completely outside liberal politics, because it’s a given everywhere. The true test of how liberal each political party is came with the vote on the European Union. The Nationalists and AD passed with flying colours. Labour failed miserably. People who can see things only in single-issue, black-and-white contexts – as you are doing here – don’t understand that it is perfectly possible to agree with a political party in general and disagree on one issue or more. Worse still, some of them actually feel superior because they disparage both or all three parties.]

It’s ok to be a Nationalist, Daphne, even a staunch one at that, but please stop insulting our intelligence by maintaining that the PN is some kind of a natural home for liberals and open-minded people.

[Daphne – No party in Malta is a ‘natural home for liberals and open-minded people’. No party in the world is. And that is for the simple reason that political parties have to be get elected, and they get elected by finding the right balance to appeal to as many people as possible. I actually happen to dislike the description ‘open-minded’ and find that those who use it to describe themselves are usually creeps and slightly weird, men with unusual interests in the bedroom, for example. In Malta, given the choice between the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party (AD is not an option to me because it’s not electable), the most obvious choice for people who think as I do is the Nationalist Party – certainly not Labour, which I would not consider for even a minute, it’s so shoddy. I still thank the Nationalist Party every day for getting Malta into Europe and making it possible for my sons to get hold of an EU passport and get out of here to have the kind of lives and opportunities that were only an impossible dream to me and my friends. And I will never – ever – forgive Joseph Muscat and the Labour Party for trying to derail that and for working flat out to persuade people to vote against membership. They must have been mad.]

He’s one of the reasons I decided to go and vote after all