The cohabitation bill is an insult

I look at my children and I want the very best for them. I want them to grow up strong and healthy, with good values and a confident personality. I want them to find love and happiness, with a partner who cherishes and respects them, and I hope that they will experience the joy of having children. I want to babysit my grandchildren and cook big Sunday lunches. I want to be able to sit back in my old age and enjoy the sight of my happy children with their happy families.

I would like to think that I have brought them into a world where they are valued and their rights respected. I want to be assured that their voice will be heard and that they will never be treated as second-rate citizens.

Is this too much to ask?

I am sure that you will agree that these are normal hopes that most parents have for their children.

The fact of the matter is that all this would be endangered if your child were gay. Many studies in different countries have found that between 1% and 3% of the population are gay. So, out of every hundred babies born in Malta, two or three will be gay... and yes, that child could be yours.

My children are still young, but one day they will come to terms with their sexuality and who knows, they might discover that they are attracted to members of their own sex.

How would I feel if it were to happen to me, I wonder? Well, I can tell you, for I have already thought about it. I would be concerned and sad.

I would immediately think about the rampant homophobia that blights this country and how this is likely to affect my beloved child. I would also bristle at the thought that the law does not consider homosexuals to be equal to other people in many matters, essentially reducing my child to a second rate citizen.

I would be devastated that my child will one day fall in love, but will not be able to marry.

I would be heartbroken that one day my son or daughter will long for a child of their own, but the law will not allow them to adopt, however stable their relationship.

I will be furious that rights that come automatically to heterosexual people will not come to them, solely because they are born different.

So some things need to be said, and they need to be said loudly. The cohabitation bill that was recently published is an insult. How is it acceptable for a government to discriminate between its citizens on the basis of sexual orientation? Why is the National Council for the Promotion of Equality not rapping the Minister's knuckles and telling him the time has come to address this discrimination?

Gay couples should have exactly the same rights as straight couples. Let me repeat that - exactly the same rights.

They should be able to marry civilly just like straight couples can.

They should be able to adopt just like straight couples can.

They should be entitled to IVF treatment just like straight couples are.

I have had it up to here with people who say that the definition of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Who is it who came up with this definition, I ask? Where is it written, exactly (and for goodness sake do not tell me that it is written in the Bible - I am not talking about a church wedding here)?

I am also fed up of hearing that adoption by gay couples is not in the best interest of the children. Numerous studies have shown that children are not damaged in any way whatsoever by having gay parents - what matters most is that the parents have a stable income and function well as a family. What is definitely not in the child's best interest is to be left in some institution, with no family to call their own.

Last year we finally emerged from the dark ages by legislating for divorce. It happened embarrassingly late, but we got there. Now that the problems encountered by hundreds, if not thousands of heterosexual couples in a second relationship have been solved, it is time to address the problems encountered by those of us who are in homosexual relationships and who also want to tie the knot.

It's time to start walking the walk as opposed to just talking the talk when it comes to true equality in this country.