After decades of homophobia, Cuba closer to allowing same-sex marriage
By Pablo De Llano
Cuba’s National Assembly has agreed to constitutional reform that would allow same-sex marriage on the island. The draft reform was approved on Sunday and will be put to a popular vote later this year. If approved, marriage would be redefined as a “union between two people” instead of a union between a man and a woman.
“With this proposal for constitutional regulation, Cuba puts itself among the world’s leading countries in terms of recognizing and guaranteeing human rights,” said deputy Mariela Castro, the daughter of former president Raúl Castro and an active spokesperson for LGTBQ rights. Castro, who heads Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, said the changes could also lay the foundation to ultimately allow same-sex couples to adopt children. “The state must guarantee all families this right and the means to reach these ends,” she explained.
Another deputy, Yolanda Ferrer, said that sexual diversity “is a right, not a stigma” and called for the country to move away from the “backward years” of the 1970s, when homosexuals were sent to labor camps. Deputy Miguel Barnet also expressed his “immense pride” at the proposed reform, arguing Cuba “is inaugurating a new area. This is a dialectic and modern constitution.”
The LGBTQ community in Cuba has welcomed the move, but indicated in comments on social media that greater political freedom is also needed on the island.
The constitutional reform does not include any change to the political system, where the Communist Party remains the only legal party. While the reference to communism as the ideal model is gone, the constitution imposes “the irrevocability of socialism.” The text, unanimously approved by the 605 deputies in the National Assembly, also recognizes private property and introduces the figure of a prime minister. The draft constitution will be put to a popular vote between August 13 and November 15, before being finally approved in a referendum, the date of which is yet to be announced.
LGBTQ activist Isbel Torres said he was surprised but “very pleased” with the reform to recognize same-sex marriage. “I thought the more backward forces within the government would have the power to prevent it, but luckily this hasn’t been the case,” he told EL PAÍS by phone. “Cuba continues to be a pretty homophobic country, more so in the countryside than in the capital,” he explained. “But there is a lot of homophobia, especially transphobia, and within the police and army this homophobia is expressed in a terrible way. At school as well. Homophobic bullying is very common and there is no type of prevention.”
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