@ ciccio: thanks for the elucidation. The resulting conversation was still interesting though … thanks

I’m pretty sure we’re both tired of going back and forth, so this is my last post.

The human rights campaigner did NOT debase himself and his causes by being there. Civil unions in Britain exist but they don’t not offer the same rights and privileges that marriage do. Not by a long short. Not to mention the fact that the word marriages itself is also important. It may sound petty to some but it is not (though obviously the rights themselves are the most imp). Again he isn’t saying that other HR issues aren’t important, but he is simply highlighting the inequalities between the way same sex couples and traditional couples are treated.

On the fact that you’re “giving me some sound campaigning advice here”. I don’t really disagree with anything you’ve said regarding the method. I think you just don’t realize that Pride does help (and the fact that your sons live in Soho, fab as it is, only means that they live in the part of london everyone goes to to get drunk afterwards, you can’t only judge by that).

About don’t ask, don’t tell. NO ONE is EVER asked if they are gay or not. It is simply something they are forced to keep hidden. There is a difference between not mentioning or not discussing something and hiding it. If a soldier does not say he is gay, never mentions it, but somehow someone finds out he would have been booted out.

And the last thing which is what annoys me the most. Your image of labour. My family is mixed but my dad is a staunch labour supporter. He is also a successful business man, who does NOT think in terms of pufti or whatever you said. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be thought of as a labor voter either, i definitely don’t fit the profile you seem to have created. The people who are more polite but also significantly more prejudice tend to be the ever so holy nationalists.

And you are such an ambassador to womanhood! Where on earth do you dip up such nonsense? Who says I get a pension from Malta? I never received a pension from any country and unlikely to receive one in the future. I shall be a self-funded retiree. Your are delusional. I know a good priest clinical psychologist who can help with your LP-phobia and anger management. You are mad!

The election would be lost by the PN if the divorce bill does not pass because of the PM’s vote.

I consider the PM in parliament as another ‘private’ member when he votes on another MP’s bill.The consultative referendum needs to be interpreted at the committee stage and all MPs in the house have a free vote on it ; ie they should vote according to their personal opinion or conscience , call it what you like.

Oh good lord. If you want to be childish about it go ahead.

A gay couple does not have the same rights as a straight one. Please do not insult me by implying that you have the same rights I do. My committed long term relationships are not given the same value your relationships are. Obviously I have the right to marry a woman. Much thanks.

[Daphne – I’m not being childish, Matthew, but pointing out that lack of logic when presenting a case has never got anyone anywhere. When homosexual couples present their case for civil unions, they must do so by arguing that there is NO CASE AGAINST IT, rather than by crying discrimination, because discrimination does not enter the equation in comparing ‘homosexual couples’ to ‘heterosexual couples’. The comparison that the law makes, when considering discrimination, is whether heterosexual people are allowed to marry those of the same gender (they are not) while homosexuals are not. The point I make is that homosexuals are presenting entirely the wrong case, which is why they have had no luck and will have no luck if they persist in using the same erroneous arguments. Where civil unions between same-sex couples have been made law, it is because the point was repeatedly driven home that there is no case against it. In the words, campaigners argued ‘why not’ rather than ‘why’. I’m giving you some sound campaigning advice here, so don’t be so ready to sneer at it.]

I was not equating the obscene things that happen in “Africa, China and India” to gay people not being allowed to get married. I never said it, never implied it. Just because someone is discussing certain human rights doesn’t mean that ALL human rights issues are on the same level. No idea where you got that one from.

[Daphne – Simple: same-sex couples can enter into civil unions in Britain now, so exactly what is there left to protest about? Nothing. That’s why London pride is a festival and not an angry march, and that’s why the human rights campaigner debased himself and his causes by being there. Not by being at gay pride as such, I hasten to add, but by being where he clearly isn’t needed any more.]

And I guess we might as well stop. You don’t want to read what I’m writing. Like I said gay prides are NOT about dancing. You obviously have never been to one.

[Daphne – I don’t need to, Matthew. There’s television and the internet nowadays, and that’s quite apart from the fact that two of my sons live in the heart of Soho and the parade you mention passes beneath their windows, so I got the pictures in real time.]

There is plenty of dancing but there is ALSO plenty of civilized public discussion, information on support groups, lobby groups, prominent public figures….

And my god, how could an educated woman like you say that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ was about civilized behavior. I’m not getting into that discussion but you obviously need to read up on it. It was NOT about servicemen not being allowed to discuss their sex lives.

[Daphne – Don’t ask, don’t tell? I’m not talking about that, Matthew, but about something long since forgotten, apparently: good manners. It is lousy manners to ask somebody whether he or she is gay, and even lousier manners to announce it. This falls into the same category of bad manners as asking people whether they are separated, divorced, living with somebody, why they have no children, whether they are having an affair, etc and also talking in detail about your personal life in mixed company or at lunch, dinner, etc or to somebody you barely know. It’s crass, vulgar and irritating. So is making a big positive deal of things. My friend has just told me how he mentioned his boyfriend to some women he knows only at the gym. “Oh wow, so you’re gay?” one of them exclaimed, like he’d just said he’s a gadzillionaire and would whisk her off to the Seychelles for a month. “That’s fantastic! Wow!” And he said that now everytime she sees him, she mentions somebody who is gay and asks him whether he knows him – you know, on the basis that they’re both gay. “I feel like opening a phone-book, pointing to a random woman’s name, and asking her whether she knows her, on the basis that they’re both heterosexual women,” he said. But that’s why we’re friends – we think about this the same way.]

I am VERY well aware of the the fact that Labour isn’t made up of tolerant liberals. But it’s also pretty clear that the Nationalists are even more intolerant and even more staunchly Catholic.

[Daphne – It all depends on what you mean by Nationalists. I think you’ll find that most people like me vote PN not Labour, while the vast majority of the narrow-minded who think in terms of pufti and think of women as chattels vote Labour.]

Tooth and nail would have been bringing out the police – who haven’t changed one bit since Tal-Barrani* – and the army.

No matter how you look at it, he still vomited in the face of Smiling Fortune and Good Fate. The Yes win was the best result PN could have dreamed of. Yet they chuck it all away. All because of the Holy Virgin’s tears.

So you casuists are happy then, I suppose. Conscience saved, and election lost. Hooray!

*Baxxter had a scrape with a gorilla in uniform last week. Gorilla? Make that Mukhabarat. The brute was dying to beat me to a pulp with a good old baton. I could see it in his eyes.

@ Joseph A Borg:

I had said “If it makes any sense, it could at worst mean that his principles and ideology are not the same as those of the Labour Party which he just joined…”
Honestly, when I wrote that, I thought that I was also implying that alternatively, the opposite could also be true, that is, “at best, his principles and ideology were not the same as those of the PN from which he had just defected.”

I find your understanding, or interpretation, of my statement way off what I had in mind, sorry.

Baxx, stupid me, I always thought that dictators don’t vote.

It’s good to know that my prime minister can be liberal enough to represent my vote on a private member’s bill, and not the country’s, while the will of the majority is respected.

What he’s saying is that even though he disapproves of the divorce law he still bows to the will of the majority and does not oppose it tooth and nail.

Joseph Carmel – I am very much for the gay cause but I don’t think that you put across the right message. Even when I saw you on Xarabank some years ago (or maybe it was some other programme) you made me cringe because you are so negative.