On Friday, the Cuban National Assembly voted to pass a new family code, advancing the bill to the final stage of a nationwide referendum, which is scheduled for September 25 in Cuba, and September 18 for Cubans living abroad.
Speaking in the parliament prior to the vote, Cuban Justice Minister Oscar Silvera Martínez hailed the “high democratic content” of the proposed code, which was discussed by Cubans in nearly 80,000 meetings between February and April. The meetings forwarded their opinions, criteria and recommendations to the project’s drafting commission.
Mariela Castro Espin, director of Cuba’s Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), said afterward that the vote proved that “as a society, Cuba has grown, enriched its heritage and its knowledge.”
“It's an exciting time for all of our people committed to the most advanced ideas of the Revolution,” she said. “The Family Code is an admirable document and has been the result of a flawless process of popular discussion.”
New Constitution Prepared the Ground
It is the 25th version of the code, the first of which was passed in 1975. The law covers most matters family-related, such as property and divorce, but unlike in capitalist countries, also mandates that men share equally in all housework with women. The new version adopted on Friday also legalizes marriages between two people of the same gender, as well as the adoption of children by gay couples and surrogacy.
Paraphrasing lawmaker Danhiz Díaz Pereira, Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, called it “a code for all, fairer, and that will make us grow as a nation.”
Cuban National Assembly
© AP Photo / Ramon Espinosa
Until 2019, the code and the Cuban Constitution defined marriage as between one man and one woman, even as the country pushed forward with a radical campaign to fight anti-LGBTQ bigotry and discrimination.
However, the new constitution adopted in 2019 defined marriage as “a social and legal institution” and “one of the forms of family organization,” without making reference to the genders of the spouses. It was anticipated at the time that same-gender marriage being explicitly legalized would soon follow, but conservative resistance, particularly by the Catholic Church, meant the question went unresolved.
In an interview with TeleSUR shortly after taking office in 2018, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said he supports “marriage between people without any restrictions,” and that he is in favor of “eliminating any type of discrimination in society.”
‘All Rights for All People’
Cuban society was not always so kind to LGBTQ people. Before the socialist revolution in 1959 that threw out the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, LGBTQ people had been confined to the informal economy in Cuba’s expansive sex tourism industry that was part of a playground for American organized crime. Even after the revolution, it took many years before the cultural confrontation with patriarchy, dubbed “The Revolution Within the Revolution,” specifically addressed homophobia and transphobia, and it became a common attitude that homosexuality had no place in socialism.
However, by the 1980s, the discriminatory laws had been repealed and a new LGBTQ-affirming education curriculum and mass education campaign was in place, headed by CENESEX, part of the Cuban Health Ministry and run by Mariela Castro Espin, the daughter of revolutionary leaders Raul Castro and Vilma Espin. Longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who led the revolution to success in 1959 and the new republic for several decades after, later admitted it was a “great injustice” how LGBTQ people had been treated, putting the blame on himself and calling for LGBTQ people to be accepted.
Legislator Mariela Castro Espin, casts her ballot to choose new leadership for the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, April 18, 2018. Cuba's legislature opened a two-day session that is to elect a successor to President Castro.
© AP Photo / Adalberto Roque
In the decades since, CENESEX has adopted the slogan “all rights for all people" and worked to ensure that transgender Cubans have their right to gender-affirming medical care protected, that LGBTQ people at risk of contracting HIV be given free PrEP medication, and that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is rooted out of Cuban culture. May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, is a major holiday in the country.
Gay Marriage Rights Under Threat in US
Meanwhile, in the United States, the House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday that would add the legal right to same-gender marriage, as well as to interracial marriage, to the US law code. The bill must still pass the Senate, where Republicans have stonewalled much of US President Joe Biden’s political agenda. However, Democrats seem more confident than usual that they will gather the 10 Republican votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
Both types of marriage were once banned in the United States but later legalized in US Supreme Court rulings. However, in the Dobbs vs. Jackson decision the high court handed down last month, which ended the federal right to an abortion by overturning a previous ruling by the court, the justices also hinted that same-gender and interracial marriage could also be overturned in the future, along with other rulings made under an interpreted right to privacy in the Constitution.
As a result, US lawmakers have scrambled to try and protect other rights only protected by court rulings by introducing bills to make them formal laws. A bill to codify abortion into federal law has so far been blocked by Republicans.