[attach id=328146 size="medium"]Celebrating the civil unions law: The gay lobby “will not forget”. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli[/attach]
“You can’t keep out the winds of change once you’ve thrown open all the doors and windows,” Joe Friggieri had told PN councillors after the divorce referendum in 2011.
The PN was then still reeling under the weight of a yes vote that conflicted with its anti-divorce stand, but almost three years and a general election later, Prof. Friggieri believes the party still has not resolved the issue.
“Joining the EU was not only about the economy but also about cultural change,” Prof. Friggieri said in the aftermath of the civil unions vote in Parliament that saw PN MPs abstain.
Prof. Friggieri noted that his speech had been “a warning” to the party on what it should expect in future as a result of the sweeping societal change brought about by EU membership.
However, he said: “It seems they did not heed my warning and Monday’s vote showed the PN is still in the same conundrum it was three years ago.”
PN party leader Simon Busuttil acknowledged ahead of Monday’s vote there were divergent opinions within the party on the issue of whether gay couples should be able to adopt children.
This drove a wedge between the liberals and the conservatives in the parliamentary group that led to collective abstention. Prof. Friggieri said that, by abstaining, the parliamentary group tried to show a common front, but it was a signal that a common position eluded them.
He believes a free vote would not have solved the issue but simply brought the differences out in to the open.
“This internal conflict has to be resolved because political parties will increasingly have to deal with civil and moral matters as time goes by... it would be unwise to believe that these issues will go away,” he said.
The PN has managed to alienate the gay vote for a whole generation- Michael Falzon
The liberal movement has undoubtedly gained momentum. In less than three years Malta has introduced divorce, civil unions on par with marriage and allowed transgender people to marry.
Historian Dominic Fenech believes the PN’s “neither here nor there position” has landed them in “an ideological muddle”.
The party supported civil unions “begrudgingly”, he said, and this was evident by the opposition to gay adoptions.
“The PN fell between two stools and what we had [on Monday] was a reassertion of the confessional attitude witnessed during the divorce debate,” Prof. Fenech said.
“Abstaining was an abdication of responsibility and it will harm the party.”
It is a sentiment shared by former PN minister Michael Falzon, who insisted the fallout of the civil unions controversy would cause electoral damage to the PN.
“The PN has managed to alienate the gay vote for a whole generation,” he said, expressing doubt that Labour’s stand would have alienated its conservative supporters.
“I doubt whether Labour supporters who oppose gay adoptions have this issue so close to heart that in four years’ time they would be prepared to switch vote or abstain. On the other hand, the gay lobby will not forget what happened,” Mr Falzon said.
Prof. Fenech believes the Labour Party has “reacquired the ideological mantle of a secular and progressive party” that inspired a generation in the 1960s and 1970s.
“The Labour Party cannot have ideological clarity on economic policy [because in today’s liberalised system mainstream parties have adopted similar policies], but it can find a bearing on cultural, moral and civil rights issues,” Prof. Fenech said, adding the party was more European than the PN despite having opposed EU membership.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com