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When
it comes to gay rights, is Cuba
inching ahead of USA?
By DeWayne
Wickham
YEARS before George W.
Bush proclaimed his support for a constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriages in the United States,
the ideologically rigid
government
of Fidel Castro made a big move in the opposite
direction. It
sanctioned
the production and viewing of Strawberry and
Chocolate, an Academy Award-nominated film about the
awkward friendship between a
straight
man and a gay man -- and the homophobia they both
had to
battle.
Since this movie debuted in theaters here in the
mid-1990s, the Cuban government's intolerance of
homosexuals has given way to a more
egalitarian
treatment of gays and lesbians. The public
persecution of
homosexuals
has declined sharply. Two years ago, Cuba had its
first gay
film
festival. Last year, the highest-rated show on
Cuba's state-run
television
was a soap opera in which a married man fell in love
with
another
man.
And
now this country is on the verge of enacting a law
that
gives
same-sex couples some form of legal status. Ending
bias "We have
to
abolish any form of discrimination against those
persons," said Ricardo Alarcon,
president of Cuba's National Assembly. "We are
trying
to
see how to do that, whether it should be to grant
them the right to
marry
or to have same-sex unions."
Alarcon said he expects
Cuba's
communist
government will soon enact a law to do one or the
other. "We
have
to redefine the concept of marriage," he said.
"Socialism should be
a
society that does not exclude anybody." This
awakening comes less than
a
year after President Bush renewed his call for a
constitutional
amendment
to ban same-sex marriage. "Our policies should aim
to
strengthen
families, not undermine them, and changing the
definition of
marriage
would undermine the family structure," Bush said in
June.
Just
one
state, Massachusetts, allows gay marriages. And only
four permit
some
form of same-sex union, which falls short of the
definition of
marriage
but lets gay couples have some legal rights. How
ironic is
this?
While a country that successive U.S. governments
have called a
totalitarian
state is moving toward expanding the rights of gays
and
lesbians,
the president of the United States -- the world's
leading
democracy
-- wants to restrict their rights.
Influential advocate To
be
sure,
Cuba is not the Netherlands. It's no gay
mecca, but the attitudes
of
people inside and out of this country's government
are undergoing a
dramatic
change when it comes to gays and lesbians. This may
be because
one
of the leading advocates of gay rights in Cuba is
Mariela Castro -
the
niece of Fidel Castro and daughter his brother,
acting President Raul Castro.
She
heads Cuba's National Center for Sexual Education.
It
also
might have to do with Cuba's ever-evolving strategy
for fending off U.S. attempts to topple its
Communist government and replace it with a
U.S.-style democracy.
A same-sex union or gay marriage law could make Cuba
appear to be more
tolerant than the USA. "Because of our historical
heritage,
Cuban society has been intolerant of homosexuals,"
said Ruben
Remigio
Ferro, president of Cuba's Supreme Court. "But there
has been a
change
in thinking. We are developing a program to educate
people about
sexual
orientation. But it is not a problem that has been
solved."
It
is,
however, a problem that Cuba's government seems
determined to solve.
"I'm
part of this country, like it or not. And I have the
right to work
for
its future," Diego, the gay character in Strawberry
and Chocolate,
told
his straight friend. Cuba's half-century tug of war
with the United States is an ideological struggle.
It is a contest between this
country's
socialist ideals and America's efforts to impose its
will on
this
island nation. While this battle plays out largely
on the world
stage,
its outcome will be determined by the trench warfare
that Cuba
wages
for the hearts and minds of its people -- those who
are straight
or
gay.
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