Degendering the Maltese family

“I Am Your Voice” thundered arch conservative presidential candidate Trump addressing the LGBT community during his election campaign. Yet months after he was elected, he barred gays, lesbians and transgenders from the military on the grounds of mounting medical costs incurred by serving military personnel seeking gender changes through surgery at the expense of the military. Clear evidence that most politicians will say and do almost anything to improve their standing in the polls, popularity or chances of election often without considering the ultimate consequences of their sometimes hasty decisions.

In Malta, what started as a rethinking of our attitudes and much-needed reforms for a previously disadvantaged section of society was turned into a veritable frenzy of cosmetic statutory changes and revisions which have tilted the balance of social justice the other way. Government by populism, particularly in politically polarised communities has become increasingly widespread despite it being possibly the most insidious element of government. As policy by appeasement becomes de rigueur, electoral strategy without full due consideration to long term impact on broader interests is becoming increasingly a standard practice by all political parties. While it would be senseless to argue against equality in professional advancement or lifestyle happiness for all, irrespective of race, religion, colour or sexual orientation, adopting wide ranging superficial reforms which devalue the structure of the more traditional family, a structure which in different forms has generally served the human species extremely well for thousands of years seems capriciously unnecessary and not entirely without risks.

This is populism in political correctness gone mad given the alacrity with which all sides in Parliament, with only minor exceptions, were ready to embrace the recent contentious conversion of gender specific references in Maltese law to gender neutral references. While a democratically elected majority in Parliament may have the power to make almost unlimited changes to our lives, there is a certain immoveable object which supersedes the sovereignty of all the relatively insignificant systems set up by mere mortals. Over millions of years nature incubated, designed and evolved a system of life sustainability through gender diversity and cross fertilisation and not even the most vociferous of all lobby groups can alter that. We are now creating a legal framework for a new family structure where mum may be dad, dad could be mum and children brought up as gender neutral have absolutely no idea. Those who represent the electorate have installed a gender nebulous status enshrined in legislation for future posterity in the name of progress. Absolute codswallop. This is not about equal rights for all, that expectation goes without saying, as the pendulum has now swung too far the other way. This is about bowing and scraping to the ideology of draconian and deep seated centre-left EU liberalism which promotes radical changes to the structure of society to quench their insatiable hubris for what they themselves think is right for all of us. This ideology is the festering EU sore which gave rise to Brexit. This is about sex coercion by the few foisted on the silent majority. This is about a government submitting to pressure by powerful lobby groups and, most importantly, this is about messing with the minds of the young, present and future generations. Perhaps it was worthy of consideration that the rights of the voiceless generations to follow may have been served better by less tinkering with the more time honoured traditional family structure aligned with easily and emphatically discernible gender identification.

In fact it’s a source of bewilderment that members of the LGBT community who understandably seek legal recognition of marriage and rights to adopt children are less understandably obsessed with ditching among other conventional matters all references to legal definitions relating to male and female. We can muddy the waters to appease our European masters who flagrantly flatter the egos of our heads of government in return for Malta’s acquiescence to their foibles, but facts remain unalterable facts. Our representatives in Parliament should not have traded EU approbation for common sense based on Malta’s culturally long held and well tested beliefs in family values but instead have had the intestinal fortitude to ignore their whips and follow their conscience.

LGBT pressure groups are now powerful enough to significantly influence government action and they are doing just that without any consideration for the resultant effect these gender diversity changes will have in the future. We can all join in celebrating the arrival of the rainbow generation but not be compelled to divest ourselves of a system which has served ALL of us and our very origins so well for millennia and deny voiceless future descendants the benefits which that trusted system had accrued for the preservation of our species. Tony Trevisan