Postcard From the Minister of Tourism
Warning: angry rant below.
A couple of days ago, we received a post card from the Minister of Tourism and Culture. It is written in a font that makes it look like it is handwritten, which is some type of unsuccessful attempt to make us believe he wrote each one himself.
The card is addressed to us as a family. How very nice of the Hon. Francis Zammit Dimech to acknowledge that two men living together as a couple constitute a family. I almost want to send him a (real) handwritten post card in return, thanking him for his acknowledgement and asking if he would care to accompany that with any of the rights that other foreigners enjoy when married to a Maltese citizen.
Mostly, he thanks us for making this a year of record tourism in Malta. He even goes so far as to say that “l-impenn u x-xogħol tiegħek bħala Malti żgur għent bil-kbir biex fit-turiżmu akkwistajna dawn ir-riżultati eċċellenti.” Well, I am flattered Francis. Too bad that I am not Maltese and cannot even obtain any kind of residence status because of your government’s old-fashioned and homophobic laws. Perhaps if your colleagues in Parliament passed some laws similar to those of most Western countries, I might just be Maltese enough to be a productive member of society and help out in your tourism goals. And your letter addressed to us as a family would acknowledge a legal reality instead of a de facto situation.
(While we are at it, I calculate that in order to send this card to every household in the country, postage alone must have cost around Lm16,000/€34,269.97. What a wonderful use of taxpayers’ money).
Feeling a bit frustrated today… can you tell?
