Times: Marriage and diversity

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100201/letters/marriage-and-diversity

Monday, 1st February 2010 by Josie Muscat, leader, Azzjoni Nazzjonali, Marsascala

I greatly admire our President George Abela for speaking out in favour of the family. I also admire his readiness not to be just an ornament of state. I am one of those who believe that the President's role should be revised to enable the office holder to have a hand on the helm of state. But that is another issue.

The President has been criticised for speaking out in favour of the traditional family. He did not exclude justice for other relationships (I don't call them alternative families) nor, to my knowledge, did he deny that every citizen should enjoy the full rights and obligations that are his due. But I find it strange that in a world that constantly tells us to respect diversity, there are those who want to apply the word marriage to any union, permanent or temporary, legal or otherwise, traditional or not. Either we respect diversity or we don't. I have had occasion to show in practice that I accept diversity among my employees. It is the quality of their work I care about, not their sexual orientation.

Of course it is more than a matter of semantics; it always is. But marriage means the union between a man and a woman and the offspring it might produce. The term civil union with full civic rights is reserved for same-sex unions. The family needs supporting because it is only the family that can procreate with all that it means to society. Same-sex marriages cannot unless they adopt, and that is a different issue.

Once both kinds of unions are put on the same footing, it is marriage that will lose out. And when marriage loses out, it is society in its totality that has to carry the burden.

[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]

Times' comment:

Gabi Calleja
The President did not speak in faviour of the family but in favour of married couples with children. All other families, which you term relationships, were excluded. This does not constitute respect for diversity but prejudice and an inability to move with the times. A mother and her child are family; a married couple who chose not to have children are family; a couple and their adoptive or foster children are family; a lesbian mother, her biological child and her partner who is coparenting (although with no legal rights or obligations towards the child) are family. The president excluded justice for same-sex unions because justice is only possible with equality, which only equal access to marriage can bring. Civil union, while a step in the right direction is not equality. Intorducing marriage equality in no way weakens marriage except in the eyes of those who look at same-sex relationships as having less value and worth than those between opposite sex couples. I would also have thought that Dr Muscat would be aware that gay men and lesbians are not sterile and can actually have their own biological children and need not resort to adoption.

Times: Gays, lesbians and special pleading

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091126/letters/gays-lesbians-and-special-pleading

Thursday, 26th November 2009 by Josie Muscat, leader, Azzjoni Nazzjonali, Marsascala

The trouble with the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual community is that they see nobody else on the horizon except themselves. And considering the discrimination they have been subjected to, I can understand that and make allowances for it.

But Bernard Muscat (November 20) has failed to understand the main thrust of my letter. When I set up the Eden Foundation, I fought tooth and nail to get children with disability out of the ghetto of "special" schools and to have them integrated into the mainstream school community. I understood very early that when the disadvantaged and those suffering discrimination allow them themselves to be sectionalised, they do themselves no good. People with disability in Malta started improving their lot, dismantling the barriers of prejudice when they started attending mainstream schools with their peers and earning a living by working in the same offices and sharing the same shop-floors with other citizens. They did not earn their badge of citizenship by staying apart from the others and asking for favours or additional rights.

They are different and that difference is part of the variegated colours of humanity. Their difference should not serve to create obstacles in their way but neither does it justify special pleading. This applies to all groups who believe they suffer from any form of discrimination.
Mr Muscat also accused Azzjoni Nazzjonali's electoral manifesto regarding the LGBT community as being a political ploy. Again he has misunderstood. If he comes to St James Hospital he will see members of his community employed there. Don't ask me who they are because sexual orientation is not a criterion for employment. To me they are men and women who carry out a job and who get paid for it: nothing more, nothing less. And that is the way I believe it ought to be. In Azzjoni Nazzjonali's manifesto we declared, loudly and clearly, that by family we mean the union of a man and a woman and we are prepared to do our utmost not to have that compromised. However, we were more than ready, on the advice of members of the LGBT community, to promise the full legal benefits of a civil union to gay couples. We were not prepared to go beyond that and have not changed our minds on the subject. That surely is our prerogative.

We have been true to what was stated in our manifesto. We did not try to profit from the plight, perceived or otherwise, of the LGBT community. We did not promise gays more than we were prepared to give. It is of course Mr Muscat's prerogative to make his political choices.

[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]

Times: Josie Muscat's belittling of the gay community

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091120/letters/josie-muscats-belittling-of-the-gay-community
Friday, 20th November 2009 by Bernard Muscat, Malta Gay Rights Movement, Mosta

In his bid to discredit the LGBT network created recently within the Labour Party, Josie Muscat (November 14) goes as low as to shamelessly place LGBT individuals and their struggle for equal rights on the same lines as "drug dealers" and "criminals", and the latters' claims to be but victims of society. His impudent association is shocking, cowardly, uncalled for and utterly disrespectful.

In his poor attempt to belittle the LGBT community in Malta, Dr Muscat seems unaware that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people occupy positions in all walks of life - from factory workers to teachers, from mechanics to academics, from lawyers to bus drivers, and indeed patients and members of staff in his own hospitals!

Somehow I am sure Dr Muscat has no qualms with LGBT patients receiving treatment in his hospitals - at a cost of course. Surprisingly, or not so much - given the barrage of unwelcome innuendos he uses in their regard - he is however firmly against LGBT individuals' rights to equal citizenship in a free and democratic society. It seems that his pledge to safeguard Maltese people's rights at European level, as he repeatedly stated was his intention before the MEP elections last May, was nothing more than a cheap electoral ploy. Or at least, his vision of the Maltese people clearly excluded any citizens who may be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Another major blunder Dr Muscat eases himself into is his mention of the "Diverse Families, Same Love" poster campaign organised by the Malta Gay Rights Movement in occurrence of the successful ILGA-Europe 2009 Conference held in Malta in the last week of October. The bus-shelter campaign ran a series of posters showing different family forms, reminding the public of the diverse relationships in today's society and the importance of equal treatment for all family forms. Dr Muscat erroneously announced that the "propaganda [was] paid by taxpayers' money..." The campaign was in fact carried out in Malta by means of funding received by ILGA-Europe. Dr Muscat can put his mind at rest that no taxes of his were used to finance it.

As Dr Muscat's opinion article title ran, Pandora's Box is indeed opening. What is leaping out of it is dangerous and unwelcome rhetoric based on prejudice and misguided facts. If this is what AN has to offer the Maltese public, perhaps the Box had better remain securely fastened.

[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]

Times: Pandora's Box is opening [Labour's LGBT Group]

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091114/opinion/pandoras-box-is-opening

Saturday, 14th November 2009 by Josie Muscat

The Labour Party's decision to provide a home for Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transexual groups (LGBT) comes as no surprise. The setting up of an LGBT Section within the PL has been ostensibly done in the name of tolerance and inclusion. Unfortunately, this move, which follows the traditional socialist pattern, makes a mockery of individual rights for these are not there to be enjoyed by virtue of an individual being a "member" of a particular group.

Far from being inclusive, the end result will be divisive. Traditionally the begetter of socialism, Marxism has thrived on envy and class warfare. Since it can no longer seriously claim to be fighting for the working class, Marxism now seeks to survive by identifying other perceived victim groups in order to justify its existence and founding principles. And where victims do not exist, the Left simply creates them.

The end result is to divide society into distinct and fragmented groups, each lobbying for their vested interests, which many a time are in conflict with, or detrimental to, society as a whole. This is a deliberate strategy because a divided society cannot function effectively and the resulting contradictions would always necessitate the intervention of the state. In the weak position they find themselves in at the moment, progressives all over Europe are seeking new ways to bring in the old, all-knowing, controlling state through the back door.

A free society, however, is built on the concept of natural justice and inalienable rights irrespective of race, sex or creed. By bestowing extra rights on real or imaginary victim groups, the Progressive ideology therefore completely undermines natural justice by bestowing extra privileges that are based entirely on race, sex and creed. It is a complete inversion of values.

If the PL set up an LGBT section within its structures, why shouldn't it create sections for illegal immigrants, drug addicts who insist on seeing themselves as victims of society, criminals who claim they were driven to crime by poverty and every other group that, rightly or wrongly, believes it is a victim?

We, at Azzjoni Nazzjonali, see this as the thin edge of the wedge. We have repeatedly warned that with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the enshrinement of the so-called charter of fundamental rights, these alien, undemocratic and unchristian tenets will be imposed on us whether we like it or not. The European Court of Human Rights has just ruled against the use of crucifixes in classrooms in Italy. It said the practice violated the right of parents to educate their children as they saw fit and ran counter to the child's right to freedom of religion.

Everything that Azzjoni Nazzjonali claimed would come in on the back of the Lisbon Treaty seems about to happen.

We are already witnessing the mushrooming of posters such as those found in Mosta and Naxxar espousing so called alternative families, posters depicting a child with two parents of the same sex. It is a subtle strategy propaganda paid by tax payers' money to condition the population to accept the inevitable imposition of progressive Marxism. The PL, true to its calling, has espoused it. Will the PN follow suit?

Dr Muscat is leader of Azzjoni Nazzjonali.

[Click on the hyplerink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]

Independent: That wonderful word ‘progressive’

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=95762
18.10.9 by Dr Josie Muscat, leader of Azzioni Nazzjonali

[Excerpt of the article.]

...

The question therefore is whether social democrats can return to their old ways, to that idea that Yelstin described had no place to go to.

Well, that is for social democrats to answer. But one can now see the reason behind the PL’s adoption of “progressive”. At the moment it is simply an appeal to attract to the Labour fold those who want divorce; those who are in a state of cohabitation; the gay community thirsting to apply the word “wedding” to their union; and anybody else with a grudge, real or imagined.

...

Independent: ‘Azzjoni Nazzjonali’ asks how MEPs will react to EU legislation

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=89483

13.6.9

Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN) said it hoped that in the coming four years until the next general election is held, Malta will have overcome some of the enormous challenges facing it. That election, it said, will be fought under conditions that are different to those of the European Parliament election just held.

Almost 70,000 voters did not cast their vote or spoiled it. Brussels will be issuing ever more orders and rules and those who did not vote will have no right to complain about those rules, AN said.

AN asked what would be the position of the Maltese MEPs if the Lisbon treaty is accepted, the march to a unified Europe gathers pace, and the European Parliament legislates to introduce abortion, divorce, and same sex marriage.

How would the Maltese MEPs vote if the EP legislates for one common police corps, and that Maltese citizens can be arraigned in member states’ courts under justice systems that are totally different to ours? Will the Maltese MEPs be working to reduce bureaucracy, which is costing people millions of euros? Will they work to lessen regulations, to promote in Malta an education system which prepares students for this century and the possibility of work outside Malta? What will they be doing on pensions, in view of the lessons learned from the current economic crisis which has shown how dangerous it is for people to have a pension that does not guarantee a proper standard of living?

AN said these were some of the questions that should have been raised during the EP election campaign. But they were not brought up and the reason was that the other parties felt it would be better for them to play to partisan politics game.

AN said it was determined to work to give a stronger voice to the citizen and for Malta and Gozo to remain free from foreign ties which are against the Maltese people’s interests.

It urged a truly united country where people could express their views, in the conviction that everyone would be appreciated.

Times: One small party celebrates as others put on brave face

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090609/local/one-small-party-celebrates-as-others-put-on-brave-face
Tuesday, 9th June 2009 by Christian Peregin and Waylon Johnston

Norman Lowell, leader of the far-right Imperium Europa that saw its standing in the European Parliament election grow, is inviting other rightists to join his new party, which he wants to call Viva Malta.

"Some of our ideas will seem left-wing," he warned, giving the environment as an example. But the new party would present a new right-wing ideology.

Speaking in front of the Great Siege Monument, Valletta, he opened the invitation to Azzjoni Nazzjonali and even Nationalist and Labour party people who were ready to take the plunge.

"The votes we won were not a protest vote. This was an ideological vote from people who know what the issue facing the country is. People did not vote for us to spite somebody else," Mr Lowell said. He said his party had imposed its ideas on the major parties and had as a result won the most important battle of all - the battle of ideas.

"We have more than doubled our support and we will now redouble our efforts to defend this country," he added.

While support for Mr Lowell more than doubled - from 1,603 to 3,559 - the small parties failed to obtain more than five per cent of the collective vote, which raised the question of whether they have a future.

Azzjoni Nazzjonali leader Josie Muscat believes there is still space, considering that 20 per cent of the population still feel unrepresented by the big parties and did not vote.

"Change does not come overnight. We are not expecting miracles," he said, while looking forward to the general election.

Dr Muscat, who raked up almost 1,600 first count votes, said he would not be resigning from the party's leadership and turned down Mr Lowell's invitation to join forces.

"No, forget it! We are not that extreme," Dr Muscat said, referring to Mr Lowell's policies on immigration.

Mr Lowell's showing was raised by his lawyer Emmy Bezzina, who runs the Alpha Liberal Party.

He said his client made an "enormous impact" that had to be analysed in terms of a growing far-right culture. This stemmed from the fact that Malta had a weakening economy.

Dr Bezzina said illegal immigrants were becoming the scapegoats for those facing tough times who in turn protested by voting for Mr Lowell. Alternattiva Demokratika, on the other hand, had been shown to be outdated, not because of its leader Arnold Cassola but because its time was up.

Dr Bezzina, who contested the election independently but did not do any campaigning since he was sitting for "tough exams", only managed 118 first count votes.

He said if Labour were open to discussing issues such as abortion and the Church's position in society, he would be more willing to join the party's ranks. If not, he would continue to militate as a voice for liberals, discussing issues bigger parties were ashamed to touch.

Meanwhile, Alleanza Liberali candidate John Zammit, who beat his liberal rival Emmy Bezzina by tallying 189 votes, said he was happy to express himself and raise issues like divorce, abortion, gay rights and euthanasia during this campaign.

He was determined not to go back to the Labour fold, although he met party leader Joseph Muscat in December and was urged to rejoin the party's ranks, he said.

"Labour is not liberal enough. I prefer to work on my own."

Libertas candidate Mary Gauci, who garnered 298 votes after a campaign focused against the EU's Lisbon Treaty, said she would not be resigning but her party would be discussing its future.

She said many complained about the two big parties but when push came to shove they still voted for them.

"I'm not going to say if there is space for smaller parties in the system we have but there is definitely need for them," she said.

Meanwhile, Alternattiva Dem-okratika, which suffered its greatest electoral defeat in its 20-year history, said it had to do some soul-searching and its leader would be stepping down after his mandate expires in October.

[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments.]

Times: Video interview: Josie Muscat on his immigration concerns

http://www.timesofmalta.com/mepelections/blogs/josie-muscat/20090529/video-interview-josie-muscat

29.5.9

«Click on the hyperlink above to watch the video and read the comments.»

[P. Attard's Note: [4:24] Dr Josie Muscat is against gay marriage and in favour of civil unions.]

AN leader Josie Muscat says two issues worry him about illegal immigration: sheer numbers and illegality. He says Malta is too small to be divided in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural way.

"Why should Malta, a country which is so small, be responsible to solve the issue of other people who are creating wars, causing people to escape?"

Malta Today: Government presses Greens’ secretary general to relinquish teaching job - Victor Galea accuses government of political discrimination

Even though this article is not on gay issues it talks on a very serious issue regarding the bullying our Green Party General Secretary (a teacher by profession) faces from the government.
(See below for related articles)

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/08/17/t1.html
Sunday, 17 August 2008; James Debono

In an unprecedented move, Alternattiva Demokratika’s secretary-general Victor Galea has been informed by the government that he cannot continue exercising his teaching profession as teachers in public employment are precluded from any political post.
Yet MaltaToday can reveal that over the past years, various public officials in the same rank as Galea have been tolerated to hold on to their posts in the PN or the MLP.
Victor Galea has served as AD’s unpaid secretary-general since 2006.
A letter sent from the Office of the Prime Minister instructed the permanent secretary in the Gozo Ministry to inform Galea that as a “teacher”, he “may not hold the post of Secretary General of AD.”
Acting upon the OPM’s instructions, the Gozo Ministry duly informed Galea that he had until last Friday – the Santa Marija holiday – to decide on whether he intends to continue serving as AD’s secretary-general.

To justify Galea’s effective dismissal from the civil service, the OPM is citing the anachronistic Public Service Management Code (PSMC) – a legacy of colonial times which bans anyone from scale 1 to scale 13 positions from any sort of political involvement.
But in reply to questions by MaltaToday, a spokesman for the prime minister yesterday said the government was “analysing whether these regulations are to be revised”. The spokesman added that OPM was “looking into the mentioned case”, while stressing that the PSMC was “under the responsibility of the office of the Principal Permanent Secretary”.
Government sources insist that in this case the Prime Minister was not aware of the actions of the higher echelons of the civil service.
MaltaToday is also informed that after receiving a similar notice two Azzjoni Nazzjonali officials accepted to renounce their political posts to keep their jobs in the civil service.
The OPM’s letter to Galea claims that it was acting following “reports carried out in the local press… that Victor Galea has been elected as Secretary General of Alternattiva Demokratika.”
The OPM is leaving Galea the option of taking “unpaid leave to occupy a statutory post in the central executive of a political party” – according to another provision in the same management code.
In fact the article quoted by the OPM does not only preclude most civil servants from occupying a post in a political party, but also precludes them from speaking in public on matters of political controversy, expressing views on public matters on letters to the press and from canvassing on behalf of parliamentary candidates.
Effectively the management code even bans nurses, pharmacists, engineers, paramedics and foreman in government employment from expressing their political views in public.
MaltaToday can reveal that various PN and MLP officials are allowed to keep their jobs in the civil service.
These include Janice Chetcuti, a PN executive committee member employed as an animal awareness organiser and a peripatetic teacher in the Education Department.
Caroline Galea, another PN executive member, occupies the post of principle in the maternity department at Mater Dei Hospital.
Kevin Sciberras, another PN executive member, holds the post of cultural officer in the Gozo Ministry.
In the Labour camp, Alfred Grixti – consultant editor of Maltastar who recently contested for the post of party secretary-general – works as a head teacher in a government school.
Newly elected party education secretary Aaron Farrugia works as an economist in the Ministry for Social Policy.

Discriminatory treatment
In his reply Galea claims that he was “singled out for the implementation of these provisions of the Public Service Code” insisting that “various other public officers have been permitted to hold office within the party structures of the Malta Labour Political Party and the Nationalist Political Party.”
Describing the treatment reserved to him as “discriminatory” in his regard, he requested “that in view of your having permitted for years on end public officers to be active in the MLP and the PN” he is not treated any differently.
“I have always carried out my duties within the civil service in a professional, unbiased and apolitical manner and I consider that my political contribution is a free service to the democratic development of our nation,” said Galea in his reply.

See also related articles listed as the story unfolds:
- Times: Reversing Summer Follies; by Lino Spiteri; Monday 18.8.8
- Political Discrimination in the Civil Service by Carmel Cacopardo; 18.8.8
- Political Discrimination by Arnold Cassola; 18.8.8
- Solidarity with Victor by Michael Briguglio; 18.8.8
- Times: OPM stops request for AD official to choose between political and teaching roles
Letter issued without PM's knowledge; 19.8.8
- The left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing by Victor Galea; 20.8.8 [article in Maltese]

Independent: Split claimed in Azzjoni Nazzjonali

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=70456
Sunday 8.6.8

An organisation calling itself Moviment Azzjoni Nazzjonali (MAN) claimed yesterday that the executive committee elected yesterday week was elected in defiance of the party statute and consequently is not valid.
It claimed it represented the real founders of the Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN) and that the party led by Josie Muscat is illegal.
A statement of facts sent by Joe Meli, national coordinator of MAN, referred to events that took place at AN's national assembly last weekend. There were motions and counter-motions with the proposer of the motion walking out and declaring a split within the party.
A meeting was held with Josie Muscat on Thursday but no solution was found.
Consequently, MAN does not recognize Dr Muscat as leader of AN.
MAN also said it will not be contesting any coming election, at any level, but will be working hard from within the existing political parties to bring about changes in the national interest.
It also asked the forgiveness of the gay community and single parents for the insulting remarks against them by the leadership of AN in the run-up to the general election.

My Comment:
It is not surprising that gays were offended with AN's attitude. Take a look at this article: http://patrickattard.blogspot.com/2008/02/gays-and-azzjoni-nazzjonali.html

See also (page 7):
http://www.vivamalta.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1459&d=1212950866

University Debate for Young Candidates

Part 1/6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFnAGFv8gs0

Part 2/6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GefvxuEV1Lo

Part 3/6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GefvxuEV1Lo

Part 4/6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPbw6Tk0Wdc

Part 5/6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDLhQbOcFY

Part 6/6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPa_9DFA_A

Gays and Azzjoni Nazzjonali

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/02/17/n2.html

Muscat’s Addams Family: OK if gay, but not broken

Sunday, 17 February 2008

Sabrina Agius

It’s utter confusion on the extreme right. Gays are suddenly more accepted than children from broken families, who in one fell swoop have been labelled by the infertility doctor, Josie Muscat, as “extensively prone to violence”.
After taking a stand against alternative lifestyles a month ago, Azzjoni Nazzjonali yesterday declared itself in favour of gay civil unions yesterday.
AN leader Josie Muscat surprised everyone when he said discrimination in the laws against gays had to be stopped.
“AN accepts these relationships are not based on capricious intentions,” Muscat said. “We believe that the law should be emended whereby same sex couples can reconcile under a civil contract, called civil partnership.”
Civil partnerships recognise basic rights, including the opportunity of having a joint bank account, joint tax computation, visiting rights in cases of sickness and hospitalisation and rights for succession in cases of death.
Despite these rights, Muscat insisted such partnerships should never be called “marriage,” adding that gay couples should not have the right to adopt children.
In the same breath, Muscat credited broken families with “bringing enormous problems on the country, and on every one of us”.
“What broken families mean is that the State needs to fork out more social benefits. Apart from that, the effect on children is drastic,” Muscat claimed, venturing into his theories on children coming from broken families being “extensively more prone to violence”.
Even worse, he exclaimed, such children will in turn cost “millions of money in social benefits” to get rehabilitated or imprisoned.
“Cancer in the core of the family is increasing, even if we still believe that the majority of our families are strong,” he added.

My Comment:

It is important to remember Dr. Muscat's homophobia on Xarabank in 2007. Philip Beattie, the second founder of AN, doesn't come across as very gay friendly either.

The AN always seemed to ridicule gay rights by the articles they publish on their website:

Flesh-Eating" Bacteria Striking Gay Men
http://www.azzjoninazzjonali.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=699&Itemid=2

Fury over new gay hate laws which 'threaten free speech'
http://www.azzjoninazzjonali.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=665&Itemid=2

The foster couple who quit rather than be forced to promote gay rights
http://www.azzjoninazzjonali.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=495&Itemid=2

Charity: Pupils risk prosecution for 'gay' slur
http://www.azzjoninazzjonali.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=439&Itemid=2

Firemen demoted and fined for shining torch on gay foursome in the bushes
http://www.azzjoninazzjonali.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=421&Itemid=2

Foreign News: Gay 'Christian' wins job tribunal against Church of England
http://www.azzjoninazzjonali.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=186&Itemid=2