Times: Before I shut up

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130307/blogs/before-i-shut-up.460623
Thursday, March 7, 2013, 18:42 by Alison Bezzina

Election fever makes people say and do all sorts of things. Yesterday, an old friend of mine publically ‘accused’ me of being selfish. She told me that my support for Alternattiva Demokratika is based solely on my wanting gay marriage to be introduced in Malta.

She went on to inform me that my priorities are wrong, and that before thinking about gay marriage we should first make sure that Malta’s economy is stable and, that we are serene.

According to her, only once these ‘more important issues’ are sorted should we prioritise other things, referring of course to gay marriage and other minority rights.

Had she been in front of me at the time, there would have been only so much I could have done to stop from throwing ‘my handbag at her’, not only because she’s completely wrong (given that gay marriage is only one of 23 AD proposals that I support), but also because she happens to be happily married with kids – a family she could never imagine her life without; a family she lives for day in day out; a family that has made her life complete.

Despite the warnings, the budget cuts, the political instability over the past months, and despite the economic mayhem in Europe, at some point our finances were good enough for her to go after her dream and form a family.

But, rest assured that had they not been (good and stable), it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.

We all like to think that we’re the type of people who would first get our finances sorted and secured and then move on to having a family. But whilst we might try our best to do this (well most of us), when push comes to shove, if a family is what we want, we go get it.

And when we’re not suffering from severe election fever, we openly and proudly admit to this, in fact we will loudly chant “of course family comes first, of course family is more important than money, of course, of course!”

Surely everyone and their brother will agree that family trumps money … unless, of course we happen to be referring to the alternative family! In this case we’re expected to wait for everything else to be in order first, for everything else to be working smoothly, and possibly even for the cows to come home.

In the case of alternative families and the need that some of us have for them, we’re expected to assume that the Government is a single cell organism, that working on two or more things in tandem is impossible, and that we simply have to wait, and wait, and wait.

What complete bull, and history is there to prove it!

For example, so many older people speak of the Mintoff years like Armageddon. They argue that it was the worst time for Malta, both economically and socially. They claim that people felt unsafe in their own homes, and that they had to watch their back on a daily basis. These people claim that during that time they lived in fear of their lives, their families’ wellbeing, and their livelihood.

Whilst I have no doubt that some of this is true, to some extent, these are also the same people who at that same time, went out, found themselves a spouse, got married and, had children… in what they themselves describe as a dismal environment and economy.

These are also the same people who today have the gall to look me in the eye and tell me not to favour AD because of their stance on gay marriage, because what’s more important than (my) family is the economy and Malta’s finances.

Puhhleease!