Albert Gauci Cunningham incorrectly equates the divorce issue with a majority-minority affair (Referendum Would Endanger Minority Rights, January 31). So he thinks that a referendum should not be held as the minority who are for divorce may not have their rights respected.
The divorce lobbyists have not figured out that divorce will affect everybody because it will undermine marriage at its foundation. No one would think of marriage as an everlasting institution any more. On an issue like this, therefore, a referendum should be the way ahead and I hope that everyone will be guided by what he or she thinks is best for all of society and not just for himself or one’s sister.
Mr Gauci Cunningham says that “everyone should be on an equal footing”. No, it is the common good that should prevail. By his thinking, blood transfusion should not be allowed because some are against it even at the cost of life itself!
He also protests against seeing queues of unmarried nuns, priests and monks at the polling booths. I don’t know where he sees these crowds of religious in Malta nowadays. But even if he were right, don’t religious form part of our people too? Or are we to deny them their rights to vote in a referendum? They may be married but they have touched marriage intimately by standing up for their offspring, some of whom have been abandoned by the parents.
He is also against the presence at the polls of “hundreds of old people who have already lived their life to the full and whose spouses, in many cases, have passed on”. So shall we deny these people their democratic rights too? These are people who have lived through the thick and thin of marriage and have something to teach. Perhaps if the young woman who has hit the rocks, mentioned by Mr Gauci Cunningham, could be guided by some of these elderly people – some of whom would have been married for 50 years – fewer people would be pro-divorce and many broken bonds might be healed in anticipation of years of love and friendship.
Mr Gauci Cunningham disrespects the Maltese people by viewing Malta as “the laggard of Europe where the majority tramples over the minority”. I am sure many foreigners would like to turn the clock back to see their families as strong and healthy as ours. How’s that for a laggard! If it makes us twice before introducing a law that would rock the foundations of our nation, then laggardness is wisdom.
Divorce is no solution to broken marriages. Only preparation organised by a multidisciplinary team from the government and from religious groups (both Catholic and otherwise) could turn back the clock.
If the divorce issue helps us understand our situation, take stock of our needs and implement solutions to remedy our problems, then it would have been a blessing in disguise. We are still in time to make the best of it. The Maltese are an intelligent breed who have always risen to the occasion. Now is their opportunity, when our beloved Maltese marriage has come so close to destruction and with the participation and blessing of the state, to encourage our youths and help them look forward with hope to their future. Divorce would only continue to dishearten them and make them think that lifelong marriage is indeed unreachable. That would be a curse on their future, not a blessing.