Fun Fast Facts:
- Same-sex activity legal since 1973.
- 57% of Maltese immigrated to Australia.
- Parliamentary bill regarding cohabitation up for discussion, next-of-kin rights and E.U. benefits have been passed.
LGBT-friendly organisation: The Malta Gay Rights Movement
- Set up in June of 2001.
- Striving for full equality for LGBT people in Maltese society.
- Founded in June 2001.
- Using E.U. membership to push for gay rights (for example, with a marriage equality position paper)
- Pushing government for anti-discrimination and same-sex marriage laws.
- The organisation takes a gay affirmative approach which values homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality equally as natural and normal attributes.
W3JOY interviewed: Mark, from the Malta Gay Rights Movement
It’s only now that it’s come out from proposals, which frankly, we as a movement find disappointing and lacking substance.
We are pushing same-sex marriage as the gold standard…we were expecting at the very least some sort of civil union or civil partnership law which very much reflected the rights and obligations of marriage. But the government has just come up with a minimalist bill. Almost like a safety net bill of co-habitation law.
Certainly on this marriage equality side, the government seems to have come up with a big blind spot on its side.
We are quite disappointed because while he seemed to be listening when we met him, the actual proposals left us very much non-plussed.
A lot of people in Malta seem to have this ostrich mentality, pretending that gay and lesbian families don’t exist where they already do.
I think our voice got more powerful because of the media backup that we had.
W3JOY interviewed: Joseph Chetcuti, author of the first Maltese-language queer book “The Pink Book”
I remember in 1994, I was the first gay man to come out professionally.
Malta, as it is today, has no anti-discrimination legislation…gay men and lesbians do not enjoy any rights.
A recent study found that Malta came last…in the European Union.
In the gay movement, you can’t have one person speaking on behalf of everyone else.
Significantly, there has also been the emerge of the public homosexual in Malta.
I looked at the emerge of the Maltese gay community on an area used to attract sailors…I was quite surprised to find a number of drag queens.
Malta’s first saint was a person of homosexual orientation…It’s really quite interesting how these priests used to fantasise about young, gay men…we shouldn’t assume that just because someone is a saint, they are heterosexual. Heaven is probably very pink.
Published on: Aug 21, 2012 @ 9:32
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:24 — 28.7MB)