A draft gay rights bill first introduced after the 1959 Cuban revolution, will be considered by lawmakers in Havana in June, Mexican media said on Thursday.If passed, the law will give lesbians, gays, transsexuals, transvestites and transgender persons the same rights as heterosexuals in Cuba paving the way for unions between same-sex couples, as well as access to sex reassignment treatment and hormone therapy for transsexuals, which would allow them to change their gender legally.
Castro's daughter, who has a degree in psychology, seems to be spearheading the efforts to pass the bill herself. Now, obviously, Cuba has many other improvements it needs to make on civil rights, but the fact remains that if America were to fall behind Cuba on something like marriage equality, that would be an utter disgrace.
H/T Towleroad
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4 comments:
wow! the first i'd heard of this was about a year and a half ago. but at that time it wasn't being discussed as viable. i guess raul is a little more forward thinking than his brother for them to even be able to release this statement.
so, we're behind a god swath of europe, our neighbor to the north, uruguay, south africa, and now soon cuba too. look out iran, nigeria and zimbabwe - we're racing you to the bottom!
It's nice to see that Cuba is taking this road, but I doubt it will motivate our government to act. If South Africa pushing past us in GLBT civil rights didn't do it I doubt any outside source will speed our rights to fruition.
You never know, John. South Africa is pretty far away and therefore, less people think about it. Cuba, on the other hand, is right on our door step and *anything* that happens there can become a big issue here.
In a lot of ways, I think it's much more like how the USSR influenced us on civil rights. The Civil Rights Act and many others may have been delayed much longer if it weren't for the Soviet Union constantly poking fun at the hypocrisy we exuded because we didn't even believe in Democracy in our own country at that time. If Cuba were to legalize marriage equality, it could start poking at us in the same kind of way... and it would certainly be a good rallying cry for the glbt movement, "if even Cuba realizes gay people are equal citizens, how can America not?"
Oh by the way it hasn't passed the Cuban "legislative process" yet, wait and see.
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