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Cuba's new leadership opens doors to sodomy, and “sex changes”

Under Raul Casto, Cuba's new socialist dictator, the country has recently permitted ordinary Cubans to own cell phones and other consumer electronics previously restricted to privileged groups and foreigners, reports Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, LifeSiteNews.com. Now it also appears to be rolling back its restrictions against aberrant sexual behavior as well.

The impetus for the changes in Cuba's policy towards homosexuals seems to be coming primarily from Raul Castro's daughter, Mariela Castro, who is the head of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), a government-supported organization.

Although homosexual behavior is no longer illegal in Cuba, the government has not yet followed the example of other socialist countries that have institutionalized homosexual relationships. Mariela Castro is seeking to do just that, and is promoting what the BBC is calling "among the most liberal gay and transsexual rights law in Latin America".

The law, which is currently before the National People's Power Assembly, Cuba's legislative body, would provide "civil unions" for homosexuals and and virtually convert sex change operations into a "right".

"If the person meets the requirements for the operation, he will be operated on," Castro told the BBC recently.

CENESEX is also engaged in programs to propagandize the public in an attempt to eliminate negative attitudes towards homosexual behavior.

Mariela Castro has at least some open support within the government. "Marriage between homosexuals, among lesbians, can be perfectly well approved. I don't think that it would at all be an earthquake in Cuba," Abel Prieto, the Cuban Minister of Culture, told the press recently.

However, Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega disagrees, observing that "not a few Cubans have been disturbed (by the idea), above all in the last year that passed, the possibility that some legal sanction approving that unions could include a falsely-called 'marriage' between people of the same sex."

Cuba's life and family policies have changed dramatically during the reign of Fidel and Raul Castro. In previous decades, and in the early years after the revolution, Cuba had prohibited sodomy as well as abortion in most cases.

Since 1965 the government has reversed its policy on abortion, becoming the only nation in Latin America to legalize the practice on demand through the first trimester of gestation, and with restrictions during the second trimester. It later decriminalized sodomy, although the practice was frowned upon and somewhat restricted.

However, as late as 2005 it was reported that Fidel Castro was asking Catholic leaders to discourage abortion, recognizing its detrimental effects on the island's population level and composition.

With the accession of Raul Castro, it appears that Cuba may take even more steps towards a liberal sexual policy, one that is likely to continue the island's demographic and moral decline.

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[04/03/2008]

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