CUBA: Mariela Castro Leads Pride Parade, Couples Join In Symbolic Weddings

Yesterday in Cuba:

Thousands marched in Havana on Saturday to support gay rights and to join a symbolic marriage ceremony organised by President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela. Waving Cuban and rainbow-coloured flags, the marchers called for equality and marriage rights for Cuba’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, on the eighth National Day Against Homophobia. “(We must) ensure that Cuban society as a whole is sensitive to these issues, is educated, and understands,” said Mariela Castro, a sexologist and leading LGBT rights activist. She said the march was also a showing of “spiritual support” of gay rights in the communist island nation.“We must continue to make noise and move these issues forward,” she said at the rally, where several couples held symbolic wedding ceremonies. Gay marriage is illegal in Cuba, though Castro has long fought to legalise it.

RELATED:  Cuba decriminalized homosexuality in 1979. Gays have served openly in the military since 1993 and anti-LGBT employment discrimination was banned in 2013. In his 2010 autobiography Fidel Castro denounced homophobia and apologized for the treatment of gay Cubans during the early years of his regime. A civil unions bill has remained stalled in the national legislature for several years.

Editorial Of The Day

From the editorial board of the New York Times:

American officials have had few opportunities to support Cuba’s gay rights evolution and have been conflicted on how to handle Ms.[Mariela] Castro. When the Philadelphia-based Equality Forum nominated her for an award last year, American officials initially said they would not give her a visa. After the group protested, they relented. Ms. [Yasmin] Machado said most gay rights activists on the island have not accepted support from Washington because its policy toward Cuba was predicated on regime change. “While the United States is the enemy of our state, we can’t work with them,” she said recently in an interview in Havana. “Any support you receive makes you a traitor.” That entrenched view has stymied American efforts to promote things such as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. President Obama’s changed policy will make engagement with Americans more palatable.

Cuba To Host LGBT Rights Convention

Next week Cuba will host an international convention of LGBT activists for the first time.  The event will be chaired by Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro and Fidel Castro's niece. The Washington Blade reports:

The sixth International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC) Regional Conference will take place in the beach resort of Varadero. A number of parties and other events are scheduled to take place in nearby Havana, the Cuban capital, during the gathering. “As the host country for the sixth ILGALAC Regional Conference, Cuba is not exempt from the problems of the region’s LGBTI communities,” states the organization. “The humanistic nature of the Cuban Revolution has focused on the human being in his teleological purposes since its beginning. Although the Cuban LGBTI movement does not have the organization of other international movements, the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the country is now evident with more impact and achievements.”

Among the critics of the conference is US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL): "Hosting a conference on LGBT rights is just another farcical attempt by the Cuban regime to pretend they care about anyone’s rights. The sad reality is that the Cuban people are harassed, beaten and bullied for having a point of view that differs from the regime’s. This desperate move to seem tolerant does not even come close to obscuring the repressive reality on the island.” Last year Ros-Lehtinen, who has a transgender son, endorsed marriage equality in Florida.

RELATED: Homosexuality is legal in Cuba and while no LGBT rights legislation exists, gay pride events have been allowed in recent years. In 2010 Fidel Castro publicly apologized for the treatment of LGBT people during his regime, calling it a "great injustice."  Thousands of gay people were rounded up and placed in internment camps while he was in power. At the height of the AIDS crisis, HIV+ Cubans were quarantined. Today Cuba produces generic HIV drugs and provides them free of charge.

Mariela Castro Gets Her Visa

Cuban LGBT rights activists Mariela Castro has been granted a visa to attend a Philadelphia gay rights forum after having first been denied one by the State Department.

Initially not expected to receive a visa, the official said the case was "looked at again" and "the restriction on her visa has been lifted, which will allow her to travel" to the event on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Mariela Castro is the director of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education and the niece of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Although she is not gay, she has lobbied for gay rights in Cuba, including the right for same-sex couples to marry and for AIDS awareness. The global conference, sponsored by the Equality Forum, a Philadelphia-based LGBT organization, will highlight the status of gay rights in Cuba.

Mariela Castro Denied US Visa

Cuban LGBT rights activist Mariela Castro, the niece of Fidel and daughter of president Raul Castro, has been denied a visa to attend a gay rights forum in Philadelphia.

Equality Forum Executive Director Malcolm Lazin said in a press release that Mariela Castro, executive director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX,) several months ago accepted an invitation to speak on a panel at the University of the Arts on May 4. She was also scheduled to accept an award at the group’s annual dinner that will take place later that same day at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

Lazin said the State Department issued a visa to Castro that allowed her to attend meetings at the United Nations in New York City. He said the U.S. government refused to allow her to travel to Philadelphia to attend Equality Forum that will highlight Cuba. Lazin told the Washington Blade on Thursday the Cuban government attached Equality Forum’s invitation to its application for a visa that would have allowed her to attend the event.

The State Department has declined to comment.

Mariela Castro Endorses Obama

Speaking at a San Francisco event, Cuban LGBT rights activist Mariela Castro yesterday said she would vote to re-elect President Obama, were she an American. Mariela is the niece of Fidel Castro and the daughter of current Cuban president Raul Castro.

"If we don't change our patriarchal and homophobic culture ... we cannot advance as a new society, and that's what we want -- the power of emancipation through socialism," she said. "We will establish relationships on the basis of social justice and social equality .... It seems like a Utopia, but we can change it." During her 90-minute appearance in San Francisco, she hailed Barack Obama’s support for homosexual "marriage" and the loosening of U.S.-Cuba travel restrictions, saying: “I would vote for President Obama.”

The Romney campaign has called on the president to reject Castro's endorsement.

“President Obama should disavow the endorsement of the daughter of Cuban dictator Raul Castro,” Romney campaign adviser Alberto Martinez said in a statement. "It is galling that an envoy from a Communist regime would come to our country and lecture the American people on who to vote for while the regime refuses to hold free and fair elections and systematically violates the human rights of its people,” said Martinez. “The decision by the Obama Administration to welcome Mariela Castro to our shores — a decision that has received rightful criticism from both Republicans and Democrats — continues to be an egregious affront to the people of Cuba and those who love freedom everywhere.”

Regarding the "decision to welcome Mariela Castro" to the United States, both the Romney campaign and the linked wingnut site fail to mention the inconvenient fact that Castro was granted THREE such visas by the Bush II administration.

Castro's Niece Praises Obama

Cuba's leading LGBT rights advocate, Mariela Castro, is praising President Obama for his evolution on same-sex marriage.

The U.S. president delivered a message that was "humane, understanding, in which he even recognizes that he too has been changing his opinion in favor of marriage, the free union of same-sex couples," said Mariela Castro, who is Cuba's most prominent gay rights activist as head of the National Center for Sex Education, or Cenesex. "Hopefully his words will be taken seriously in the political and legislative decisions made in different states and in the whole world," Castro said, adding that such statements by Obama and other politicians must be accompanied by concrete actions if they are to be made into reality.

Cuba's legislature is currently considering recognition of same-sex unions.

Fidel Castro's Niece Is Blogging

The champion of Cuba's nascent LGBT rights movement, Mariela Castro, has launched a blog. The niece of Fidel Castro and daughter of President Raul Castro, Mariela has been the public figurehead of a series of advances over the last few years. You can also follow Mariela Castro on Twitter. (Tipped by JMG reader Adam.)

Fidel Castro: I Take Responsibility For Cuba's Persecution Of Gays

Calling it a "great injustice," today Fidel Castro told a Mexican newspaper that he accepts responsibility for Cuba's persecution of its gay citizens, thousands of whom were rounded up and placed in internment camps during his regime.

Castro said that the revolutionary government's actions represented "a great injustice – a great injustice! – whoever committed it. If we committed it, we committed it. I am trying to limit my responsibility in all that because, of course, personally I don't have that type of prejudice." The interviewer paraphrases him as saying that "everything came about as a spontaneous reaction in the revolutionary ranks that came from the nation's traditions. In the old Cuba, blacks were not the only ones discriminated against; there was discrimination against women and, of course, homosexuals." Was the Communist Party to blame, the interviewer asks. "No," Castro responds. "If anyone is responsible, I am. True, at that time I couldn't concern myself with the subject. I was deeply and mainly involved in the October Crisis, the war, the political issues. But in the end, if responsibility must be assumed, I assume mine. I'm not going to blame others," Castro says.

Many will likely credit Castro's niece Mariela for today's statement as she has led Cuba's burgeoning LGBT rights movement in recent years. Havana has staged gay pride parades for the last two years.

HAVANA: Fidel Castro's Niece Leads Hundreds In LGBT Rights March

Yesterday Mariela Castro lead a parade of hundreds through the streets of Havana as part of the International Day Against Homophobia. Last year Mariela's father, Raul Castro, replaced Fidel Castro as president of Cuba.

Some of the marchers played drums and others walked on stilts as they made their way down a wide avenue in the capital's hip Vedado neighborhood, where they have held a series of debates and workshops ahead of the May 17 celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, which participants say marks the day in 1990 when the World Health Organization stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness. "We have made progress, but we need to make more progress," said Mariela Castro, a campaigner for gay rights on the island and the leader of Cuba's National Sexual Education Center. She is also the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro.

Cuba has come a long way in accepting homosexuality. In the 1960s, shortly after the revolution, homosexuals were fired from state jobs and many were imprisoned or sent to work camps. Others fled into exile. But that began to change in the 1980s, in large part to the work of Mariela Castro's center. Recently, the government has even agreed to include sex change operations for transsexuals under its free national health system, another project championed by the center.

Mariela has been campaigning for marriage equality in Cuba as well, although that movement has seen little advancement.

Cuba Sees First Gay Pride Parade

Yesterday Cuba celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia as Fidel Castro's niece led revelers on a raucous conga-line through Havana.

Cuban President Raul Castro's daughter led thousands of citizens in a street dance in central Havana on Saturday to promote gay rights. Cuban Sex Education Center director Mariela Castro kicked off a programme of events promoting respect for freedom of sexual orientation by joining lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for a carnival-style conga in central Havana. Opening the Diversity is Natural conference a day before the World Day against Homophobia, Ms Castro called on "all Cuban people to participate so that the revolution can be deeper and include all the needs of the human being."

More Progress In Cuba

Things are continuing to get better for Cuba's gays.

Cuba's gay community celebrated unprecedented openness - and high-ranking political alliances - with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on the weekend. The meeting at a convention center in Havana's Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, who has promoted the rights of sexual minorities, presided.

"This is a very important moment for us, the men and women of Cuba, because for the first time we can gather in this way and speak profoundly and with scientific basis about these topics," said Castro, director of Cuba's Center for Sexual Education. Mariela Castro joined government leaders and hundreds of activists at the one-day conference for the International Day Against Homophobia that featured shows, lectures, panel discussions and book presentations. A station also offered blood-tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

Cuban state television gave prime-time play Friday to the U.S. film "Brokeback Mountain," which tells the story of two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair. Prejudice against homosexuals remains deeply rooted in Cuban society, but the government has steadily moved away from the Puritanism of the 1960s and 1970s, when homosexuals hid their sexuality for fear of being ridiculed, fired from work or even imprisoned. Now Cuba's parliament is studying proposals to legalize same-sex unions and give gay couples the benefits that people in traditional marriages enjoy.

Amazing.