As of today in the archipelago of the Maltese Islands, it is a criminal offense, punishable by fines and jail time, to speak of the homosexual orientation, its variants and their expression as a disorder, disease, or shortcoming of any kind. You can read more about it here. And this in the small set of islands that had welcomed Saint Paul and Christianity when he was shipwrecked on his way to Rome for trial (Acts 27, chapters 27-28).
The above begs the following questions from both my hats as a clinician and a Catholic of Maltese origin:
- What is going to now happen in Malta to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, since in it the homosexual orientation itself is defined and described with great clarity as “intrinsically disordered?” Is the Catechism, released by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana and regarded as an elaborate blueprint of Christianity in the Latin Rite Church, going to be outlawed or censored in any way because of this legislation? In what manner are members of the Catholic Church and/or those who profess the Catholic faith going to be affected, in relation to their ability to practice and/or teach the faith as established by Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God?
- What is going to happen in Malta to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by clinicians and mental healthcare professionals worldwide for diagnoses of clinical conditions, since ego-dystonic gender identity disorder is classified as a pathological condition in the Manual?
- How is the government of Malta going to amend the laws of Malta in relation to the licensing/warranting of medical, healthcare, and allied healthcare professionals? Since the government, in this instance, has usurped the role of said professionals by determining, via legislative means, what is and what is not a mental health disorder – a competence and a privilege reserved in first world nations (of which Malta is one) for those licensed/warranted to make such a determination in the first instance based on their medical and/or psychological education?
Many more questions come to mind, but the above for now suffice.
