Hunters please note: being gay is not a pastime

Let it be known from the start that I am very much against hunting; not just spring hunting but any kind of hunting and at any time of the year. The idea that a pastime is cruel in nature and causes the suffering and death of any living thing goes against everything I believe in.

With a few members of my own family being avid hunters, I’ve had many arguments on the subject. In my opinion, most arguments in favour of hunting don’t hold water, of course, but there is one argument that kind of does. This is how it goes: We all agree that a pastime is something that we do regularly just for pleasure. In other words, a pastime is not something that we need to do or have to do; it’s not like work or other obligations that we do as a means to an end like, for example, studying. On the contrary, a pastime is something we choose to do voluntarily and willingly. We do it for its own sake, on a regular or semiregular basis just because in some way or another it gives us pleasure.

Now, some might argue that eating meat is also a pastime because it has long been established that it is not vital for human survival. Therefore, since it is not something that we have to do, it follows that whoever is not vegetarian (like me) is in essence engaging in the same barbaric act of killing animals for pleasure.

So how can I or anyone else who eats meat, point a finger at hunters who enjoy shooting birds out of the sky for fun, when we kill animals simply because we enjoy eating them, also for fun?

Sounds hypocritical right? Admittedly it is, but just because I don’t like seeing birds being shot out of the sky, whilst I still enjoy the odd steak here and there, does not make either ‘pastime’ right. It might make me a hypocrite of sorts, it might mean that my pastime is also wrong, but it doesn’t in any way make hunting right.

So there we have it: my pastime is also wrong which makes me a hypocrite and hunters are in quite within their rights to criticise me for not being a vegetarian. Bring it on, I say! We now have a petition of 40,000 signatures calling for an abrogative referendum against spring hunting. On the other hand, we ‘supposedly’ have a petition of 100,000+ signatures calling for a change in the Referenda Act, apparently not to stop the referendum on spring hunting but to stop the majority – or even another minority – from forcing their whims on other minorities.

I say ‘supposedly’ because I seriously question the authen- ticity of those signatures, not only because they haven’t been verified, but also because the organisers used devious tactics to convince people to sign.

I can’t say that I am very much surprised with these tactics because it’s hardly out of character for the Neanderthal hunter-gatherer mentality.

According to media reports, those collecting signatures went around giving concrete examples of the minority groups they were representing. They mentioned groups such as offroad enthusiasts, horse racing enthusiasts, feast enthusiasts, karozzini owners, fishermen and (wait for it) gay people. Puhlease! Since when has being gay become a pastime? This kind of confused association exposes the mentality of the people behind this petition. It reveals that they still think that being gay is a choice and that engaging in the lifestyle is just a hobby, just like collecting stamps or kayaking, when anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows that being gay is equivalent to being left-handed, blue-eyed or black.

So, dear hunters, please note: being gay is certainly not a pastime and it is certainly not a choice, which is why the protection of LGBT rights has finally been included in the Constitution.

As things stand, the Referenda Act makes it possible for 10 per cent of the population to request an abrogative referendum through the collection of a petition of signatures. If the FKNK’s request is enacted, it would become extremely difficult, if not impossible, for minorities to influence or change national decisions. In essence, Parliament would be able to legislate as it wishes, even if it means bulldozing over minority rights.

In any case, don’t we all belong to some kind of a minority or other? Aren’t left-handed people a minority? Isn’t the Nationalist Party currently a minority? Aren’t Milan Football supporters, body-piercing enthusiasts and nail-biters a minority?

Granted, the law is not clear about what constitutes a minority but internationally it is used to mean a group of people who do not ‘choose’ to be part of that group, but happen to form part of it ‘ de facto’. The definition is usually restricted to things like race and ethnicity, language, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age and – arguably – religion, and when it comes to the protection of such minorities, it would require that that minority has a long history of being discriminated against. It also requires that the discrimination in question has a serious affect on people’s lives, such as, for example, restrictive access to employment or healthcare.

The FKNK’s argument is that 100,000 signatures cannot be ignored, implying that if they are, these same signatories will exercise some form of ‘pay back’ during election time. Again, what’s new? This is the kind of threatening hold that this pseudo minority group has always had on every political party that was ever in government.

So what is the government to do? The FKNK is right in saying that so many signatures cannot be ignored, but if the government listens and then turns down a request, that request would not have been ignored – now would it?