Bernard Muscat, Malta Gay Rights Movement, Mosta
Josie Muscat's belittling of the gay community
In his bid to discredit the LGBT network created recently within the Labour Party, Josie Muscat (November 14) goes as low as to shamelessly place LGBT individuals and their struggle for equal rights on the same lines as "drug dealers" and "criminals", and the latters' claims to be but victims of society. His impudent association is shocking, cowardly, uncalled for and utterly disrespectful.
In his poor attempt to belittle the LGBT community in Malta, Dr Muscat seems unaware that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people occupy positions in all walks of life - from factory workers to teachers, from mechanics to academics, from lawyers to bus drivers, and indeed patients and members of staff in his own hospitals!
Somehow I am sure Dr Muscat has no qualms with LGBT patients receiving treatment in his hospitals - at a cost of course. Surprisingly, or not so much - given the barrage of unwelcome innuendos he uses in their regard - he is however firmly against LGBT individuals' rights to equal citizenship in a free and democratic society. It seems that his pledge to safeguard Maltese people's rights at European level, as he repeatedly stated was his intention before the MEP elections last May, was nothing more than a cheap electoral ploy. Or at least, his vision of the Maltese people clearly excluded any citizens who may be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Another major blunder Dr Muscat eases himself into is his mention of the "Diverse Families, Same Love" poster campaign organised by the Malta Gay Rights Movement in occurrence of the successful ILGA-Europe 2009 Conference held in Malta in the last week of October. The bus-shelter campaign ran a series of posters showing different family forms, reminding the public of the diverse relationships in today's society and the importance of equal treatment for all family forms. Dr Muscat erroneously announced that the "propaganda [was] paid by taxpayers' money..." The campaign was in fact carried out in Malta by means of funding received by ILGA-Europe. Dr Muscat can put his mind at rest that no taxes of his were used to finance it.
As Dr Muscat's opinion article title ran, Pandora's Box is indeed opening. What is leaping out of it is dangerous and unwelcome rhetoric based on prejudice and misguided facts. If this is what AN has to offer the Maltese public, perhaps the Box had better remain securely fastened.
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Joe Xuereb
Nov 20th 2009, 23:27
2) I apologise for a lengthy comment. I would have preferred not to bother at all as your take is quite unworthy for a seemingly intelligent man. But I know WHO I am and for you to suggest that I have your permission to exit the closet reflects more on you than it could ever reflect on me. As for Josie Muscat - good luck to him. He'll need it.
Martinelli, get this into your head. For long enough I was supposed to stay in the shadows beholden of my so-called straight brothers and feeling intimidated by them, and fearing them. We know much more now. Those days are long gone. And this comment here - please regard it as not written - will, I hope be read by my younger brothers and sisters in the community who will take heart and learn that 'coming out of the closet', in their own good time, at their own volition does not stop the planet going round.
I repeat, please regard this as not written. I am sure you are very busy storing up bile on other issues.
Joe Xuereb
Nov 20th 2009, 23:16
1) @ Martinelli, YOU allowed ME to exit my closet? How dare you? Has living in Canada taught you nothing? So the PL caused a controversy by hig hlighting homosexuals' predicament. Controversy, your word not mind. Homosexuals - that is men who kiss other men and not butcher them in boxing-rings in case you haven't noticed - need the kind of exposure that will enable them one day to talk openly about the gift they bought their boyfriend (if they are male homosexuals) in much the same way that a 'heterosexual' (note the inverted commas, please) male announces to all the world that he has 'a bit of skirt' at his side. He walks tall, he 'is' what society expects of him. Unfortunately, he often impregnates because he is too macho/selfish/religious to use a condom - very much in the news at the moment, another controversy. Only for him to walk away, still tall, denying - if he knows at all - any responsibility. And on to the next conquest.
continued
J Martinelli
Nov 20th 2009, 17:48
@ Joe Xuereb I too disagree with Josie's radical approach and incorrect assessment of gays and their rights. But can you give me one example how, creating the LGBT group within the LP is going to help them any? Can labeling a group, obviously identifying them somewhat separately from the mainstream, be of any help? We have gone well beyond hiding gays in closets and them coming out regarded as a surprising if not a controversial event! To my knowledge gays, of both sexes, have been struggling not to hide, but to be part of the mainstream with EQUAL treatment and without their lifestyle being a determining factor in all their endeavours. Thus far I know of no gay group seeking special treatment - just equality in law and social status. All the LP had to do is simply declare that LGBTs are welcome like any other members of their Party. No controversy would have been created and a comment from Josie Muscat would have been superfluous.
Joe Xuereb
Nov 20th 2009, 16:54
A doctor of all people and leader of a political party at that, should know better.
LGBTs are not lesser mortals. Mortal I definitely am. One of those who have a firm belief that when they're dead, they're dead. That's quite a statement, a humility, in a society steeped in ever-lasting arrogance in the land of the undead. No, not a Hammer film. It's only little moi. Sorry, I've gone off at a tangent as usual. I was saying. LGBT aren't lesser but they are treated as such. It doesn't take superhuman brains to understand this much but people would rather believe that LGBT needn't not 'highlight their plight' by belonging to a separate section within a larger group. They say it's unnecessary, that one may as well 'marginalise' women, illegal immigrants, and habbaziz vendors. This, of course, is usually male-speak for 'I WOULD RATHER THEY CONTINUE TO MERGE IN I MAINSTREAM SOCIETY, POLITICAL PARTY, ETC. AND SO BE RENDERED INVISIBLE. i PREFER THEM TO BE INVISIBLE. i FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THEM HIDDEN AWAY. There'll come a time whenLGBT people's visibility or otherwise will be neither here nor there. We've some way for that to happen I'm afraid.
Kurt Mifsud
Nov 20th 2009, 13:36
Unfortunately in Malta many people use the "minority" term to confuse opinion with rights. The 'majority' want to take decisions for the minority. But I believe that "A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion."
Dr inġ. Patrick Attard
Nov 20th 2009, 12:37
Well done. Great letter.
Dr Josie Muscat confirms the need for such LGBT networks.
One cannot compare illegal immigration, drug addicts and other criminals to the gay minority. The only crime gay people commit is being born different and harm or abuse no-one by living peacefully with their partner. Why is it so difficult to grant the rights to a gay man to visit his partner in hospital, to a lesbian to take bereavement leave when her partner dies to be able to mourn her loss, and to a transgenerder person to have a different sex on the identity card so as not to be embarrassed every time s/he goes to a bank.
In an interview with the Times just before the MEP elections, Dr Josie Muscat had said that he is against gay marriage but in favour of civil unions for gays / lesbians, yet I wonder if this statement was really genuine. (see video 04:24: http://www.timesofmalta.com/mepelections/blogs/josie-muscat/20090529/video-interview-josie-muscat )
Franco Farrugia
Nov 20th 2009, 10:33
A clear and good letter.
Indeed, Pandora's Box had better remain closed. Because, if it had to open, the stink and the stench that would come out would overcome everyone. Far too much right-wing would come out and we would be overwhelmed by all kinds of right-wing belief and conservative attitudes that would certainly surprise us. So, leave the Box closed tight.