Like something out of The Onion, or a spoof in Private Eye
Published:
May 22, 2011 at 3:17pm
Lucky charms to ward off the great evils of divorce legislation
“Reliable sources have told MaltaToday that the anti-divorce lobby has taken over transport arrangements weeks ago and also devised a time-table on shuttle services from homes with carers to assist the elderly as they arrive at their polling stations.
Buses will reportedly have priests or nuns on board to recite the rosary during the trip, while anti-divorce activists will also be placed in street corners to picket around the polling stations.”
– maltatoday.com.mt, today
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Why all this fuss? The Yes people have the right to express their views; the No people likewise; the newspaper columnists and commentators idem; so – for Heaven’s sake (Art.1 of our Constitution) why so much criticism because the church teaches what her Master told her to teach?
Indeed, I could do with a giggle or two when I’m there.
Where did you get this? From Xarabank? Morons have no right to express their views. Yes, they have a vote, but that’s as far as it should go.
I disagree. Every moron in a democracy has a right to express his or her view.
They have a right to have their own views. But to express them? Just look at Xarabank, and look where it’s gotten us.
Kuragg, Baxxter! Issa gejja Arriva! Oh Eh Oh! Oh Eh Oh!
Please tell me that this is only a joke. Are these things really happening in Malta?
Perhaps Bishop Grech might answer this: if all those who support the introduction of divorce are going to be barred from the Eucharist, does it mean that all the hundreds of millions of Catholics all over the world, who accept divorce, are subject to this restriction as well?
Or is Christ only fixated on Maltese people?
Maybe it’s time to have a referendum on independence for Gozo.
Why are people so surprised that these things are happening in Malta? Do we forget so quickly?
Where have you been the past ten lifetimes?
The Maltese have always been hysterical and hyper-defensive about their religion’s right of place at the helm of the nation.
Even in the 80s, when the fight was for justice and liberty (supposedly to make Malta modern and European), there was a strong confessional slant to the PN opposition to Labour. It’s business as usual right now with this referendum. Nothing’s changed.
Kull meta tikteb, Silvio, tibda bis-sens u tispicca b’xi cucata.
Din tal-Indipendenza ghal Ghawdex kien hareg bija dak li issa iridna nohorgu mill-EU.
Mhux ahjar tmur f’xi cafe’ u toqghod itteftef f’xi sigarru jinten?
Majteswel hire il-Qahbu & Co to do some picketing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/will-malta-finally-decide-that-divorce-should-be-legal-2287186.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/malta/8528302/Malta-to-hold-referendum-to-whether-to-allow-divorce.html
Oh dear. Please, God, another DSK or US raid in Pakistan, or perhaps Gaddafi’s death. Anything to take Malta off the headlines.
Why don’t we ever make it to the international headlines for the right reasons?
If (when?) the No vote wins we’ll be right there in the “strange but true” section, sandwiched between the Sudanese man who married a goat and the woman with 30-foot long toenails.
Lately we nearly always seem to be there for the most embarrassing reasons don’t we !
Put your mind at rest, Baxx. There will be an earthquake followed by a tsunami in the Mediterranean, Berlusconi will have a 16-year-old love child asking for parental recognition and HSBC will declare itself bankrupt. While Malta will say NO for divorce. Enough?
Forget about Malta, Baxxter, it’s a lost cause. Third weekend in a row that I’ve walked out of a Manhattan bar drenched in champagne. Now if we can pull it off on Saturday …
Oh dear God! Does your finance minister realize that he will be the butt of every joke at the next international meeting of his peers, and alongside him, the Madonna whose name he foolishly invoked? His Eminence, the PM, should demand his resignation.
Just wondering, though: What are the chances that this horrid publicity outside of Malta might motivate some bright spark at the Vatican to call Malta’s bishops to account for the medieval games they have played throughout this campaign, and the negative impact it has had on the reputation of the church as a whole?
I didn’t get the reference to Manhattan, El Topo, but I see that the incident involves champagne. Not once, but three weekends in a row. It therefore merits my full approval.
I did a bit of sociology fieldwork this weekend, at Level 22, Portomaso Tower. Wall-to-wall with the rich and famous and knee deep in 50-year olds desperately trying to look 20, and acting like it.
Went there with my mate Spadger’s mate Spudgkov, from beyond the Urals, who’d left Malta five years ago and wanted to visit all the new places. Met some interesting characters, such as a Maltese pornstar (a rare find indeed), and a single gay man (that’s “gay and single”, not “the only gay in the village”).
He hit it off with this libertarian-looking fifty-something non-pépé (a refreshing change), who obviously got talking about her voting intentions and kept telling him kemm jaghmel sewwa li gay u single, u mela!
Spudgkov, meanwhile, was chatting up the Russian trophy girlfriend of the pornstar fellow, who must have been twice her age.
Then I woke up on Sunday morning to read yet more Times letters about il-valuri tradizzjonali fil-gzejjer Maltin. I’m as Catholic as they come, but to start from such a false axiom invalidates anything that follows.
Oh and they no longer stock Hendrick’s gin at the bar.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
[Daphne – You can get it at the Phoenicia bar. As for Level 22 – HOW DEPRESSING. No wonder single people over the age of 30 say they want to top themselves at times. Characters straight out of the swingers’ party in Bruno.]
Someone I know is in an old people’s home.
He goes to mass frequently.
Last time round, the priest held up the wafer in front of him and asked, “Kif ha tivvota fir-referendum ?”.
Only when he said “Le”, did the priest dish out the dosh.
On all my kids’ lives – true story.
Nearly makes me wish I was a church-goer so I could tell them where to shove it.
That was a cunning plan! If your friend answered “Yes”, he would have been taken HOSTage until Pullicino Orlando was forced to declare in front of Net News that he will be voting “No” in the referendum.
The above caption should read like so: To ward off the great evils of divorce legislation we should recite the rosary.
Divorce legislation is not going to stop people acting the way they do. Someone who would have no qualms about acting selfishly and irresponsibly is not going to “behave” simply because there is no divorce legislation in Malta.
“while anti-divorce activists will also be placed in street corners to picket around the polling stations.”
I thought this was illegal.
This is becoming “Daliesque” I’m actually going fly home and fly out on polling day! Thank God business calls…..
Mela ergajna gejna fi zmien l-Isqof Gonzi? Dan il-progress li ghamel il-pajjiz? Veru jiddispjacini ghal dawk iz-zghazagh u tfal li qed jikbru f’din it-tip ta’ njuranza (u kemm jiena kuntenta li binti mhix tghix Malta).
Storja fabrikata min naha tal IVA ghax qed ixommu ir riha tat- TELFA.
“Morons have no right to express their views.”
And YOU will define who is a moron and who is not. Now let me guess … your criteria would be that morons are those against divorce.
This is the first time Daphne is quoting Malta Today as a reliable source. In the “NO to divorce” movement I haven’t spotted a single clergyman, and after listening to what our Archbishop wanted to say in his pastoral letter I didn’t notice any threats.
If transport was going to be organised we would have heard it from the pulpit in the “Avvizi tal-Parrocca”, why would transport for NO voters be kept secret? This is not the 80s Church school crisis!
[Daphne – There is transport for the elderly, John. I don’t know whether the Curia is involved, but the No Movement certainly is. An elderly relative of my husband, who is in residential care and who has made a point of never voting in her entire life, will make an exception for the divorce referendum and will vote No. The director-general of the Malta Financial Services Authority/head of the No Movement will be collecting her personally and driving her to the polling-booth and back.]
I find nothing wrong with someone taking another person to do his civic duty and vote.
Don’t both parties/candidates organise transport for every election to their supporters?
This only shows that the NO movement is organised and is leaving no stone unturned to reach its goal.
If anything, the Church would have told its followers that it’s organising transport for the NO voters, and it would have been perfectly legal to do such a thing.
I liked the part of a priest reciting the rosary on the bus!
As if there will be a busload of voters on a half-hour trip in a one-by-one kilometre village. Now who’s taking his readers for a ride (pun intended)?
To tell you the truth I pretty much suspect that the PL is organising something on the lines reported on the reliable paper Malta Today. Joseph Muscat has a lot to lose with a NO win. Labour would be losing another slice of their followers like they did when they said NO for Europe.
“And YOU will define who is a moron and who is not. Now let me guess … your criteria would be that morons are those against divorce.”
Not at all. My criteria are that morons are those who confuse opinions with facts, those who cite the wrong facts, and those who make illogical arguments.
I was looking at the bigger picture beyond the divorce debate, and the sorry state to which this country has sunk. Helped along, as always, by Xarabank and its glorification of hick culture.
So you see, both Iva and Le camps are one big league of moronity. And to show you what I mean, here are some examples:
1) IVA: Battered wives will be able to divorce, ergo vote yes.
Illogical argument. Domestic violence is a police matter, and divorce will make not one jot of difference to the number of battered wives.
2) LE: Statistics in Ireland prove that divorce brings about an increase in marital breakdown, ergo vote No.
Wrong facts + opinion parading as fact + illogical argument. If marital breakdown is indeed on the increase, it could be due to a thousand socio-economic factors which have nothing to do with divorce. And if the marriage has broken down, it is because the husband and wife no longer love each other. What’s that got to do with divorce legislation being available?
3) LE: Jesus was against divorce, ergo vote No.
Ultra-illogical argument, for a gazillion reasons. We’re voting on civil law, not church law, and this is certainly not a referendum for or against Jesus Christ. Besides, a Maltese citizen isn’t necessarily a Catholic, so throwing Jesus’s quotes at them is about as effective as asking a chef to bake a cake by following a car repair manual.
Opinion has taken the place of fact, and arm-waving has replaced logical argument. We’re light-years away from Themistocles Zammit, Ugo Mifsud, even Manuel Dimech, and other civilised Maltese. Today’s commentators would shame a Sicilian village assembly.
And all because it’s been drummed into us that “kullhadd ghandu dritt ghall-opinjoni.”
Ok Baxx, I misunderstood you. You mentioned Xarabank, I think Bundy’s Affari Taghna is even worse.
Note: the LE movement is not quoting Christ. That’s some other fervent Bible-bashing Catholic. His argument holds water for real practising Catholics. If for example God forbids killing, a firm believer of God should not approve the killing of people. Same applies for divorce.
I know the feeling when you’re in a country which is run in a way different from what one expects it to be run.
That’s OK. The divorce debate is just the tip of the iceberg. We got to the point in Malta where a man can declare the earth is flat, not only without fear of being laughed down, but with a guaranteed spot in Xarabank’s panel, with his ludicrous assertions being given equal treatment those of the greatest living scientist’s.
And what’s wrong with that? It happens in every election.
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that, but you have to work it out yourself.
I will be voting YES. Is the head of the NO movement willing to come over and give me a ride to the polling-booth? I am even ready to recite the Rosary on the way there. But I will still vote Yes.
l isqof Grech fuq rtk ghadu kif giddeb li dawk il qabda iddisprati li qed jghamlu min kollox biex ihammguh u forsi jippruvaw jipperswadu lil xi hadd biex jivvota iva.
kemm qalu fuq l isqof Grech u ikkritikawh ghax ghamel id dover tieghu. IMMA meta l isqof grech kien qal fuq il kontijiet tad dawl u l gholi tal hajja hadt ma hammgu u kolla kienu fahhruh.
ja qabda ippokriti
LEEEEEEEEE ghad divorzju
Nispera li hadd ma jaghti kasu, bhalma ghamel il-gvern meta tkellem fuq il-kontijiet tad-dawl.
Tista tghati ftit ezempji ta kif l-isqof Grech giddeb lil xi hadd? Per ezempju tista turi li l-isqof ma ghajjar lil hadd traditur?
x`hemm hazin daphne billi id direttur generali ta l MFS ser imur personali jwassal lil xi hadt biex jivvota?
bhall kandidat tal ellezjoni generali jmur jiehu xi pazjent biex jivvota.
so what?
Reminds me of what the Nationalists do come every general election.
I am still shocked at the scene of five or so chaps from MZPN (I knew most of them personally) carrying what was probably a terminally ill old man on a stretcher to the polling room. Oh, and what about the transport which the PN ‘unofficially’ provides to cloistered nuns during general elections? Ma xi dwejjaq!
U ara x’ gej minn barra Malta ta’ sorijiet u missjunarji.
Dawn ma misshom jithallew jivvutaw:
1 huma ma jinteresshomx x’ jigri Malta;
2 lilhom ma taffewhomx ghax religjuzi.
Jien naf b’min se jivvota IVA ghal li jista jinqala’. Allura dawn m’ghandhomx dritt jivvotaw ghax forsi jizzewgu xi darba? Jew meta jaqblilna nifirdu l-Knisja mill-istat u meta jaqblilna nghidu li dawn mhux se jizzewgu u ma taffetwahomx?
Imma lil-pajjiz jeffettwawh – u kif! U dawk ghandhom id-dritt, bhal ma ghandek int, li taghmel dak li tahseb fil-kuxjenza hu tajjeb ghall-pajjiz.
fenech m
dawn mhux ser jirragunaw bhall ma qalulkom tal partit.
“ma ghandniex bzonnu imma biex ikun hemm ghal li jista jinqala.”
dawn ma ghandhomx bzonnu allura mhux ser jivvutaw ghalieh
In my view this falls squarely under the ambit of “undue influence” – Article 52, Electoral (Polling) Ordinance – Chapter 102 of the Laws of Malta.
Such an objective piece. The sources are extremely reliable…I mean what do you expect from Malta Today?