Cubans approve same-sex marriage in referendum

Cubans approved the new Family Code in a referendum that opens the doors to same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples and redefines the rights of children and grandparents, authorities reported, although the percentage of rejection it was unusually strong.

The president of the National Electoral Council, Alina Balseiro Gutiérrez, reported that according to the preliminary results, 66.87% of the valid votes said “Yes” to the new legislation while 33.13% voted “No”. She said that 74% of the little more than eight million islanders called on the day went to the polls.

It is a new norm of more than 400 articles that touches for the first time the issue of the rights of homosexual couples and adoption, which has generated controversy among Cubans.

It also contains other novel points such as the legalization of “solidarity gestation”, which would allow a woman to have a child for another non-profit person, the expansion of the rights of grandparents to guarantee their communication or give them “parental responsibility” of their grandchildren, something considered vital in Cuba where up to four generations usually live together in the same home and emigration means that many minors are raised by the elderly.

The referendum took place in the midst of the deepest economic crisis in decades in the communist nation, where the main daily concern among its more than 11 million inhabitants is to overcome food and medicine shortages, in addition to the increasingly constant blackouts.

In a video message to Cubans released by the official press on Monday, President Miguel Díaz-Canel celebrated the approval of the measure and said that “it has been a victory of affections… of love.”

The initiative defines marriage as the voluntarily agreed union of “two people” and not “between a man and a woman”, as established by the current norm of 1975, which opens the doors to the union between people of the same sex.

The issue is controversial and sensitive in a society considered sexist and in a country where in the early years of the Revolution homosexuals were frequently detained and sent to labor camps for “rehabilitation.”

Miguel Alberto Galindo, 64, who has a small stall in the market in Havana, cast his vote early in the morning and stated that he gave his support vote.

“The vote for ‘Yes’ is a vote for the country. The code caters to all families and it is time for homosexuals to have the same rights as everyone else,” he noted.

But Alejandro Rodríguez, 33, who works in a hardware store, voted “No” because “some things in the code are good, but others are bad.”

He explained that he does not agree that homosexuals have the same rights as “normal” families and the custody of children.

The LGBT community in Cuba supports the new code, as do figures like Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Raúl Castro and niece of Fidel, who supports the rights of same-sex couples.

The proposed legislation also raises concern and is resisted by social conservatism in Cuba, where evangelical churches have been growing. Several religious leaders have expressed concern that it could weaken the traditional nuclear family.

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