The two sides of the coin

I am urged to vote yes when: The anti-divorce movements claim this will affect Catholic marriages as we all know it does not. When they claim the Catholic religions should be imposed on others. I am Catholic and I attend Mass not because it is wrong to miss it but because I believe it is beneficial for me. I fast on Good Friday not because the sale of burgers and cakes may be forbidden but because I believe it spiritually helps me in the remembrance of the suffering of Christ.

I think Catholics are mature enough to be Catholics not because they have to but because they really believe in God.

The Prime Minister comes up with such a statement as, with divorce, all marriages will now expire after four years. No, not all, only in the case of those who decide to resort to it.

Some priest tries to instil fear by claiming it is a sin to vote yes. Voting yes does not mean I believe I should have the right to use such legislation but that others should have such right if they so wish. As a Catholic, I will never resort to it but as a citizen I want to leave others free not to be Catholic as long as they do not harm others. That is the principle of religious freedom.

Others claim Malta should not allow divorce because it is a Catholic country. They forget that only 50-60 per cent of the population attends Mass and attending Mass is only the basic first step of being Catholic. Deduct those who only attend Mass for the sake of their reputation and you will realise that we Catholics are actually a minority in this country.

The party in government takes a position against any form or type of divorce while moving forward towards a cohabitation Bill. Can we be more inconsistent than that?

I am urged to vote no when:

I drive past a billboard in which a movement has re-awakened a dead social stigma and reintroduced a defunct term that not even my grandma remembers to have ever used in reference to children born out-of-wedlock. And this when they know the law does not distinguish anywhere between legitimate and “illegitimate” children.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando bluffs he will get his divorce from the UK, reminding us or, at least, giving us the impression that he only started all of this for his personal reasons.

Deborah Schembri cries loss of income because the Ecclesiastical Tribunal has banned her from working within it, making us realise, or, at least, giving us the impression she too may be only doing this for her personal interests, a family lawyer who needs more family cases to ensure an income.

I read pro-divorcist comments on Facebook turning this whole referendum into a “crusade” against the Catholic Church, being so arrogant as to expect it not to preach its message.

Some claim this is an individual right. How can the dissolution, for no reason and without mutual consent, of a contract that was entered between two people be an individual matter? If I enter into an agreement with a bank for it to buy a house for me while I pay loan payments, I cannot just make a unilateral decision and walk out of the contract and then ask the court to approve of it. Why is civil marriage going to be the only bilateral contract that can be dissolved unilaterally even when no adultery, abuse or other matter specified in our present fault-separation law is involved?

I am then urged to simply boycott the referendum when I remember that 69 people’s representatives could have saved us all this hassle, shouldered their responsibility and took the best decision in the interest of the country themselves without having us vote on a copy-and-paste Bill we do not yet know if and how it will be amended and which no one has yet started to discuss.

A question tied to this incoherent and still-to-be-amended Bill has left me and others among the undecided lot. It would help if both movements stop shooting themselves in the foot, remove their silly billboards, stop insulting our intelligence with utter half-truths and instead start discussing the legal implications of the proposed Bill.

The author is a Nationalist member of the Gudja local council.