Regarding the word “community”

Women have, in the past, been made to feel subordinate to men. They fought very hard to get the right to vote and to work and be treated equally in the work place and outside the work place too. Yes, today they still face sexist attitudes from time to time, but it is not as bad as it used to be.

However, when it comes to homosexuals and other social minorities things are different. No matter what problems women have faced in the past no one has ever tried to exterminate women.

[Daphne – Ah, but Edward! That’s only because we were essential for reproduction (Baldricks could be found for cooking, laundry and possibly even sex). If that were not the case, then possibly yes, women would have been exterminated. Lots of people had lots of fun torturing and burnng and drowning women on the flimsy excuse that they were witches, remember, or that lovely generic word, ‘bad’. ]

The threat of being exterminated is what makes those individuals group together even more in order to defend themselves since there is safety in numbers. This threat is not imaginary, especially when the Catholic Church talks about homoesexuals as being as serious a problem as deforestation, when homophobia is not just about insulting homosexuals and discriminating against them but also beating and killing them, and let s not forget that homosexuals were also victims of the holocaust in WW2, but when they were liberated homosexuality was still a crime and so they were all sent to prison.

Every case of social minorities identifies itself as part of a communit, bar one- women. Incidentally women are in the majority. There are in fact more women than men in the world. But when it comes to people of a different religion, race, or sexuality things are different.

The word community is not about being part of a club. It is a sense between all individuals who are of a social minority in a country or area who feel they need to have strong bonds between each other in order to protect themselves. There is a sense of community between us to some degree. So it is an apporpriate term to use.

I don’t want to hurt people , and if I were in their situation I would not know what I would do in the circumstances.
So let’s stop here.

[Daphne – My feelings exactly.]

“Of course it is not a biological process !”
Then what is it an electronic process? Or a Frankenstein process?

[Daphne – A bit of a Frankenstein process, yes, if you must, with all those artificial hormones and laboratory equipment involved, frozen embryos, multiple implantations and what not. The whole thing bothers me enormously, but I stay off the subject because I don’t wish to upset those who are very sensitive already because of the situation they’re in. And when it comes down to it, a child is a child is a child.]

David II ,If you followed Gonzi’s address to the party delegates you would have learned that the party will have a working committee on each of the ten ‘statements of intent’, these committees will include non-political experts from every field.

I did note write ‘infertile’, I avoided that word on purpose. Some heterosexual couples who have infertility problems are good candidates for an IVF process.
Artificial insemination is still a biological process, the impossible becomes possible with some help.

[Daphne – Of course it is not a biological process!]

Two men can never have children, women can do whatever they like with their bodies , but biologically a woman needs a man’s sperm to bear children.

I hope I explained myself clearly.

[Daphne – No, John, it’s you who are confused. In much of artificial insemination, one of the couple is not the biological parent. Both sperm and eggs can be donated.]

Ah, the dangers of using Maltese. I think they mean “strengthen basic freedoms FROM censorship”.

The news does not cheer me up because it is so obviously intended to attract votes rather then a reflection of changed attitudes in the PN leadership.

In fact, it is worse becasue it is hypocrtical considering the opposition to social reform by the PN, in recent years, e.g., the introduction of divorce.

[Daphne – Yawn. So I assume that you justify Labour’s dogged stance against EU membership?]

[Daphne – You’re quite wrong there. The MLP never changed its anti-EU stance, and it still hasn’t changed it now.]

I think the LP is no longer anti-EU as much as it was when Gaddafi was still alive and behind the PL. There is no Gaddafi now to bail out the LP without the EU.

Meanwhile, Cyrus was enjoying the crisp BLUE skies in Brussels on his Facebook yesterday.

If the minorities who will benefit restart the anticlerical talk, they will have only themselves to blame if the dialogue stalls. Labour will only be too pleased, and will turn its back once in government.