Tuesday, July 19, 2011, by Andrew Borg Cardona
Maybe it's because I'm orientation-blind, along with being colour-blind and oblivious (I hope) to any other cause of discrimination, that I can't understand what Josianne Cassar was going on about when she wrote on Sunday that Cyrus Engerer's defection has resulted in a spasm of gay-bashing and lifted the veil of hypocrisy that surrounds gay rights.
It goes without saying that Ms Cassar was getting at the PN here, mainly because it seems that nothing good can ever emanate from the PN side of the political equation for her.
Ms Cassar cites insults directed towards Engerer (she mentions rubbish, in both the versions adopted by the vernacular, racanc and imbarazz) as evidence of the tolerance breakdown that has become manifest within the PN's ranks, shock horror.
I beg to differ.
If you watch Engerer's last speech to the PN General Council (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UXOURd4Zg0) you can see and hear him praising the PN as the party of inclusion, diversity and what have you and lauding the PM quite fulsomely.
This speech was delivered on 27th June last, not even three weeks before Engerer seems to have undergone a Damascene experience of epic proportions, prompting him to scuttle off down the mooring lines into Joseph Muscat's "Progressive, Moderate, Liberal Movement" (or whatever they're calling themselves just at the moment)
Not to put too fine a point on it, it was Engerer's resignation and immediate defection to the Labour Party, while at the same time saying he was going to be an Independent in the Sliema Council, where he had been elected as a Nationalist, that prompted people to call him names, not his sexual orientation, which is his business and no-one else's.
I was going to call this blog "No, it's not because you is black" but I didn't think everyone would get it, and "It's not because you're gay, it's because you betrayed your own words" was a bit too long.
[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]
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