Warning: Divorce can harm your religion

I am a non-smoker. I have been a non-smoker since November 2008 and it has been a long time since I last craved a cigarette (I almost wrote “craved a fag on my lips” we’d never have heard the end of it…).  Nowadays I find the strong stench of cigarettes repulsive and given the choice between a smoke-free environment and a room full of tobacco enthusiasts I will choose the latter.

My evening habits have changed since I very rarely venture into bars or clubs that oblige me to smoke passively as though my life depended on it. One of the things that has crept into the Top Ten Things I Hate List is using a lift after a bunch of smokers have just exited. Stomach-wrenching stuff. I will still happily puff on the end of a Fiorentino cigar any day though.

It’s all about choice really. Smoking is bad for your health. I was brought up in the eighties and nineties when the crusade on smoking was in full swing and am now living in the aftermath of the politically correct naughties were the final nails in the coffin are being hammered into the cigarette industry. Growing up in Malta I’d expect an institution such as the Department of Health to warn me about the dangers of smoking. I’d acknowledge the use of fiscal measures to disincentivise smokers from indulging in their habit. What I would never condone is the government banning cigarettes outright. It would just not make sense would it?

I mean health-wise it would be a bonus for our society in general and I do know that I am toeing a fine line when I say that the there is a line to be drawn when it comes to government interference in what is essentially a pleasant addiction for many (why not drugs? why not less rules on hunting?). The “harm” issue is also fluid here since the question of harm to the self can be counterbalanced by the harm to others issue when it comes to indulging in a puff or two outdoors or in public places.

Yet we accept the state of affairs. The DH warnings get more and more critical (this year the ugly photos of the effects of tobacco on humans will appear on your pack of 20). The government will tax and tax. But you still have the choice as to whether or not to smoke. It’s a matter of your will – and until the balance is definitively tilted about the social burden and harm of tobacco we will never see a ban on tobacco. The tilt is towards choice.

There. Now think in terms of divorce. Think of the Church as the Department of Health – issuing warnings to the health conscious about the recommended way of life for a longer and healthier living. Is it that hard to understand the difference between a fully informed citizen having the option and choice and one who has been totally deprived of choice by the nanny state that thinks it knows better?

Call me presumptuous but I think that someone who willingly quit smoking after realizing the dangers involved is in a much better position than someone who had the last cigarette pulled out of his mouth. From a purely Christian perspective the No to Divorce activists who kick start their reasoning from the “Alla U Gesu ma jridux id-divorzju” perspective should be asking themselves whether not choosing the option of  divorce is the same as not being able to divorce.

I have long gone on record that a christian-democrat politic can comfortably accept divorce legislation as a right in society. Which is why the new Catholic Pro-Divorce movement does not surprise me at all. What does surprise me is how the Nationalist Party has rejected this strand of christian-democracy in the most unqualified of manners.