Marriage Equality bill ‘in the common good’, PN branch says

The proposed Marriage Equality Bill is in the “common good” as it will give everyone in society the right to marry their loved ones, the Nationalist Party’s equality branch has said.

In a statement, FOIPN said that the Bill, which will introduce gay marriage, will give the LGBTIQ community the rights they deserve and recounted how the PN had proposed the same proposal in its electoral manifesto “because it believes in equality and equal opportunities”.

The PN is officially in favour of the Bill, which will introduce gay marriage and which is set to pass into law on Wednesday evening. However, several PN MPs have raised concerns about the proposed terminology and one of its conservative MPs Edwin Vassallo went rogue, voting against the Bill in its second reading earlier this week.

In a move designed to test the resolve of the Opposition’s conservative MPs, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has demanded that MPs individually cast their votes in the final reading in Parliament next week.

FOIPN argued that a truly inclusive Marriage Equality Law would not have abolished the words ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘husband’, and ‘wife’ from certain articles of Maltese law, but rather maintained them while adding the gender neutral terms ‘parent’ and ‘spouse’.

“The Bill concerns a very sensitive issue and the terminology could have been chosen more appropriately,” it said. “Despite this though, the law will represent another important step forwards for equal opportunities in Maltese society.”