I have rarely, if ever, written twice in a row about closely-related subjects. I feel that this time round I have to make an exception of sorts. For the second consecutive week I write about the now President Emeritus George Abela. This time in relation to the umbrage taken by the self-dubbed local liberal lobby for his decision not to sign the gay marriage and gay adoption Bill (its double speak title is the Civil Unions Bill) if it was ever presented to him.

All sorts of descriptions were attached to Abela’s decision, which has been leaked to the press but never confirmed or denied officially. Abela’s decision was described as being divisive, narcissistic, self-indulgent and self-centred.

Abela’s position is quite naturally open to harsh criticism. There is nothing wrong with that. In this case, some of the criticism levelled was more akin to the hurling of insults than to an expression of disagreement as this scorn imputes to Abela cheap and demeaning motives.

But the worse is still to come. The ‘learned’ liberal commentators also lambasted Abela for being guilty – in their estimation – both of a complete abnegation of his constitutional responsibilities as President and for an unconstitutional challenge to Parliament. It seems that Abela, now described as if he were the nastiest among the nasty villains, hovered close to becoming worthy of the non-coveted title of President Traitor instead of that of a President Emeritus.

The intolerance of the locally-bred liberal lobby knows no bounds. The same correspondents even denied Abela a most fundamental human right. They said he has absolutely no right to plead personal conscience or moral grounds! This is incredible besides being absurd. What a far cry from the adage that one should defend anybody’s right for an opinion even when one disagrees with that same opinion. Voltaire, it seems, is no darling of our home-grown pseudo-liberals. We are now being told Abela has no right to reach a conscience-based position and express an opinion about it.

This is not the first time when the individual’s basic human right for freedom of conscience was challenged in this country. This happened during the divorce referendum debate. On that occasion, the culprits were people who could be described as conservatives on the right. Now the outrage is being perpetrated by liberals on the left. It’s rightly said that extremes meet!

During the divorce debate, I was among those who defended Catholic voters’ and Catholic politicians’ right to legitimately take a position based on a well-formed conscience which would have been different from the position of the hierarchy of the Church.

When a high Church official said on television that a Catholic politician would commit a sin if he/she voted for pro-divorce legislation, I immediately wrote in my commentary that this was not correct.

I wrote that politicians – like the rest of us – should always follow their formed and enlightened conscience as this is the inner sanctuary within every individual who listens to the voice of reason or, in the case of believers, listens to the voice of God before taking a concrete decision. In this free forum of conscience, we are really and truly ourselves.

Fortunately, that position found the backing of many within the Church. A declaration was penned and published by nine priests, including high Church officials and academics, defending everybody’s right to reach a decision based on their duly formed conscience.

I still subscribe to that position.

Those who follow this column know that I have strongly criticised the proposed gay marriage and adoption Bill. Among the many reasons I gave is that the legislation is based on deceit. The Labour Party promised one thing before the election (i.e. recognition of civil unions) and is doing something completely different after the election (i.e. introducing gay marriage).

This said, however, I have no problem saying that an MP can, in the circumstances, reach a decision in conscience to vote in favour of the Act in the third reading.

I personally cannot fathom how President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca was so staunchly against the introduction of divorce but is now so staunchly in favour of gay marriages and gay adoptions. But I defend her right to reach that position. I guess that her soon-to-be-scheduled meeting with Pope Francis (who had described gay marriage as an anthopological regression and urged Bishop Charles Scicluna to oppose its legalisation in Malta) would be quite amusing.

He has just hosted and praised a Maltese President – so we are told – for refusing to sign pro-gay marriage legislation only to find that within a couple of weeks he will host another Maltese President who proudly signed that same law. I am certain that though the irony of the situation will not escape the Pope, he will respect Coleiro Preca’s decision.

Back to Abela’s decision. I am sure that he would have backed his words with action had the Prime Minister forced the issue (wisely he did not), passed the Bill from the third reading and presented it to the President. Abela would have refused to sign and then resign. Then Parliament would have chosen another President.

The intolerance of the locally-bred liberal lobby knows no bounds

So where is Abela’s disrespect for his office, the Constitution and to every other Tom, Dick and Harriet as our home-grown pseudo-liberals want us to believe? Where is the budding constitutional crisis? There would have been a crisis had Abela refused to sign and refused to resign. This would have implied an impeachment motion and a possible constitutional crisis. But Abela is not some third rated politician hungry to stay in power even when he should not.

Those who do not have a short memory know that after the 1996 election, Abela was appointed consultant to then prime minister Alfred Sant. Abela had no problem in resigning when Sant acted in such a way that Abela found to be objectionable. If I recall correctly, the issue had to do with Sant’s setting up of a personal commission to study possible divorce legislation; something which was nowhere in the Labour pre-election manifesto.

Abela also had no problem with resigning from his post of deputy leader of the Labour Party when the party delegates decided to go for an early election. He would not have clung to the presidency even if the Bill was presented to him long before the dusk of his tenure.

Abela’s decision not to sign the gay marriage and gay adoption Bill was indeed one of the high points of his presidency. May there be more politicians and public figures who place their conscience before personal ambition and public office.

Robert Bolt in his play about Sir Thomas More wisely writes: “I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

More than leaving office under a cloud, Abela has showed that there could be a silver lining even in the current political culture which glorifies cynicism above every other value.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt