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 Cuba Considers Sweeping Gay Rights Bill
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: March 27, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET
(Havana) Cuban lawmakers will vote in June on a
bill that would make the country one of the world's most progressive in LGBT
civil rights.
The draft legislation would make it illegal to
discriminate in jobs and housing against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and
transpeople. It would recognize same-sex domestic partnerships, although
not grant marriage or adoption rights, and it would allow transsexuals to have
identity cards showing their true sex. In addition the bill would require the
government health service to pay for sex reassignment surgery.
The measure has been championed by Mariela Castro,
the daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro. She heads the government-funded
National Centre for Sex Education and has been a longtime LGBT rights
advocate.
Mariela Castro said she would have liked to have
had the bill include marriage but she and LGBT leaders believed it would be met
with opposition and could jeopardize the bill.
"A lot of homosexual couples asked me to not
risk delaying getting the law passed by insisting on the word marriage,"
she told the BBC.
"In Cuba marriage is not as important as the
family and at least this way we can guarantee the personal and inheritance
rights of homosexuals and transsexuals."
Last month Cuba's Culture Minister Abel Prieto
said that he supports gay marriage.
Gays have had a long struggle for recognition in
Cuba
There are no gay clubs in Havana, although one
bar does offer a weekly "gay night".
Prior to the Castro revolution gays were
regularly rounded up and jailed. Even after the revolution many gays were
sent to forced labor camps for "re-education and rehabilitation."
The camps were abandoned in a few years but gays
often were denied jobs and in the 1980s, there were government orchestrated mass
rallies denouncing homosexuality.
©365Gay.com 2008
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