Government spokeswoman at the Ministry for European Affairs and Equality Paula Cauchi takes to task a Times of Malta editorial for stating, among other things: “The institution of marriage, between a man and a woman, is a foundation pillar of society. Nothing can change that.” (September 26.)
She claims that the editor refuses to update his understanding of institutional marriage despite all parliamentarians but one voting in favour of same-sex marriage.
Malta voted to legalise same-sex marriage on July 12, 2017. Considering the best interests of the child should have been the primary concern of parliamentarians on both sides of the House; instead, they opted for a vote-catching exercise to redefine marriage in order to acquiesce to the desires of the LGBTIQ community, thereby eliminating the discrimination against them at all costs.
The bottom line is that the desires of the LGBTIQ community trumped the best interests of the child. It stripped the child of her/his fundamental right to have a mother and a father. Parliamentarians got it wrong.
Undoubtedly, members of the LGBTIQ community can be just as loving as opposite-sex couples, but children require more than love. The crux of the matter is not whether a child needs a loving family, rather whether it is in the best interests of the child to be effectively barred from having a mother and a father.
Additionally, parliamentarians wilfully ignored the voice of the child. A child has a fundamental right to be heard. It is not possible to claim rights without a voice. Local defenders of children’s welfare, such as social workers, child-psychologists and psychiatrists, paediatricians and, above all, the Commissioner for Children remained shamefully silent.
A 2013 Today Public Policy Institute report titled “Same Sex: Same Civil Entitlements” reads: “What is abundantly clear, however, is that the existing scientific research does not provide definite answers or solid empirical evidence for or against same-sex parenting.
“In such a sensitive area, it would seem sensible that a longitudinal scientific study should be established specifically examining this issue before irrevocable long-term decisions under a law are taken.”
Parliamentarians on both sides of the House either wilfully turned a blind eye to this vital document or, if they ever bothered to read it, deemed it irrelevant. Obviously, examining the report and adhering to its recommendations would have put a spoke in the wheel for parliamentarians.
In a 2012 issue of Social Science Research, family researcher Loren Marks penned a scholarly response on the American Psychological Association 2005 Brief. The brief declared there was not a single study showing that children of gay and lesbian parents were disadvantaged compared to children from mother-father homes.
Marks concluded that the brief was riddled with structural flaws, such as: small non-representative convenience samples, exclusion of minority individuals or families, the failure of 39 studies to include a heterosexual comparison group, the repeated selection in the remaining 20 studies of single-parent families as theheterosexual parent group, suppression of data from the 1996 Sarantokos study that reveal “significant differences” in outcomes between children of heterosexual married parents and those of same-sex parents.
True to form, Marks’s academic contribution did not fail to draw the ire of the LGBTIQ community activists in the US.
All else being equal, children do best when raised in an opposite-sex marriage. Mother-love and father-love, though equally vital for optimal child development, are qualitatively different and produce distinct parent-child attachments. Children progress through predictable and necessary developmental stages; they need opposite-sex parents to help them moderate their own gender-linked inclinations.
Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the reality that children need a mother and a father
Professor of sociology andco-director of the NationalMarriage Project at Rutgers University David Popenoe asserts: “We should disavow the notion that ‘mommies’ can make good ‘daddies’.”
He aptly writes that the two sexes are different to the core, each is necessary for the optimal development of a human being.
Some of the people who, on the face of it, stand to gain the most from same-sex marriage do oppose it. LGBTIQ activists propagate the myth that only conservative religious people oppose same-sex marriage. Xavier Bongiboult represents the opposition of a sizeable segment of the French non-religious gay community.
When interviewed as to whether his opposition to France’s same-sex legislation was grounded on religious conviction, Bongiboult replied: “Absolutely not. I am an atheist.”
Against Equality: Queer critiques of Gay Marriage is a pocket-sized book. It labels same-sex marriage as an essentially conservative cause. The book lays bare the destructive split that exists within the LGBTIQ community on same-sex marriage.
A rising chorus of children conceived through donor insemination are bravely speaking out against what was ‘planned’ for them by same-sex couples. Similarly, an increasing number of adults adopted by loving same-sex households are being forthright in speaking out on the deleterious impact that adoption has had on their lives.
Founder of the International Children’s Rights Robert Lopez grew up as an adopted child with the love of two lesbian women. He says that in his teenage years he felt effeminate and tried to fill the gap ofthe missing father by indulg-ing in promiscuous sex witholder men.
He often felt confused not knowing whether he was gay or straight. Lopez has dealt with a lot of children of same-sex parents. He claims the majority of them are confused about their sexual/gender identity.
Senior research fellow in American Principles and Public Policy Ryan Anderson comments: “Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the reality that children need a mother and a father.
“Redefining marriage does not simply expand the existing understanding of marriage; it rejects its truth”.
For all I know, this truth could very well be the reason why Cauchi finds the said editorial so unpalatable.
Frank Muscat is a retired guardian-ad-litem and reporting officer and retired member of the Law Society Child Care Panel interviewer (London).