Cubans stage ‘independent’ Gay Pride march

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

(old photo from 2009 Mariela Castro)

A small group of “independent” Cuban gays and lesbians strolled down a Havana boulevard Tuesday to celebrate Gay Pride Day — and mark their distance from pro-government LGBT groups controlled by Raúl Castro’s daughter Mariela.
Waving rainbow colored flags, dozens of LGBT activists and supporters joined what was described as Cuba’s first gay street demonstration not sponsored by the government in recent memory. The event drew a strong police presence but went off without incident.
Leannes Imbert, whose Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Observatory organized the event, had said that she was inviting everyone, even Mariela Castro, to the stroll — not a protest or a march because those might have required police permits.

But the event was clearly designed to highlight differences with the “official” LGBT groups backed by the first daughter, who has argued that Gay Pride parades are “protests” not needed in Cuba because the country’s laws protect gay rights.
The stroll also highlighted the growing activism of varied independent groups — gays, blacks and farmers, among others — seeking a stronger voice in the nation’s affairs as the communist government tries to overhaul a stumbling economy.
“People are a bit more daring each day. We’re hearing critical expressions that were unthinkable before,” blogger Yoani Sánchez wrote in a Tweet as she joined the 90-minute demonstration.
In turn, the independent groups are receiving growing attention abroad. Imbert attended former President Jimmy Carter’s meeting with civil society leaders in Havana in March, and the U.S. State Department is planning to spend $300,000 this year to help the LGBT community in Cuba.

Imbert told reporters after the event that Mariela Castro and her National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) in Havana had organized several events Tuesday to divert attention from the stroll. Security officials also had warned gay rights activists in recent days to stay away from the Observatory’s event.
Several El Nuevo Herald calls to Imbert’s cell phone Tuesday appeared to have been blocked.
In an interview published earlier on the website Cuba Encuentro, she declared that her group organized the stroll primarily to cast a spotlight on the LGBT community in Cuba, “which has been in the shadow for so long.”

She acknowledged some improvements in gay rights in recent years but argued that not all the credit should go to Mariela Castro, who has been the face and the voice of the pro-government LGBT community on the island for more than a decade.
“This is the time when we have to come out into the light and show everyone the LGBT community in Cuba, which is not only CENESEX,’’ Imbert was quoted as saying.
The Observatory will “demand” respect for the rights of gay Cubans, she added, “which up to now have been denied. There are many violations still — although the form has changed somewhat if we compare it to past years.”

Herb Sosa, head of the Unity Coalition, a Hispanic gay rights group based in South Florida, remained skeptical of the Observatory, arguing that if the Cuban government allowed the stroll it must be part of a government propaganda effort.

“Almost every day I get reports of LGBT community people being beaten, arrested, dragged off to jail because there’s no freedom of expression at all in Cuba,” Sosa told El Nuevo Herald.
Imbert told Cuba Encuentro that police have broken up efforts to mark Gay Pride Day in past years and pointed out the stroll was held on Paseo del Prado — a pedestrian boulevard in central Havana where police cannot accuse participants of disrupting traffic.

New York author Armando Lopez recalled in a column in May, shortly after Mariela Castro had led a CENESEX-organized conga line down Havana streets for her version of a Gay Pride march, that Fidel Castro had harshly attacked gays in a 1963 speech.

“Homophobia became state policy” that year, Lopez wrote, quoting Castro as saying that gays “use public spaces to organize their feminoid shows … Socialist society cannot permit such degenerate actions.”
Castro added, “I always noticed that the countryside never gave rise to that subproduct.” Two years later, he sent thousands of gays, priests and others he did not want to draft into the military to the notorious hard labor camps known as UMAP.
Cuban gays, Lopez added, “are victims of an absurd revolution. Just like you and me, my dear reader.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/28/2289773/cubans-stage-independent-gay-pride.html#ixzz1QheSEbDU

Cuba Parade Says No to Homophobia

Once again 23rd Street in Havana’s Vedado district was chaperoned by the police, while gays, lesbians and transsexuals paraded down that central boulevard. The short march began at the cascading Malecon fountain only a few blocks from Pabellon Cuba – the center of this year’s near-month-long “Campaign against Homophobia.” Colors, music and flags abounded—Irina Echarry reports for Havana Times.

For the original report and a gallery of photos follow the link

The majority of the participants took advantage of the occasion to display who they are, without being repressed, though their presence stirred the curiosity of passing onlookers. The police, apparently playing a safeguarding role, must have been cursing the day when they had to assist the same people they abuse throughout the rest of the year.

These are the very ones who the police usually fine (and sometimes cart in to the station) for being at a gay meeting place on the Malecon, or who they harass at Mi Cayito (the beach that’s supposedly a zero intolerance zone). That’s why the uniformed officers didn’t hesitate in making fun (among themselves) of those who came to celebrate “their day.”

This is the day LGTBs are permitted to come out and show themselves off. Nonetheless, comments like “Look how that fag dressed in black moves… that’s to get you to do him,” could be heard among Havana’s finest as they broke out in laughter.

It’s been a few years now that the campaign against homophobia has been held in Cuba to eradicate that evil. Yet lesbians, gays, transsexuals and bisexuals continue being the objects of police repression, social humiliation, mockery and family rejection.

Repressed and spurned for such a long time, this is the one day when displaying themselves openly and congregating becomes a carnival. Some put on dazzling cabaret make-up at ten in the morning, others decked themselves out in wedding gowns and a few preferred to walk down the street kissing, unaware of the vortex that rallied them all together.

Spontaneous parades are not permitted in Cuba. All of them must be guided by the officialdom. The LGTB community, disallowed until a few years ago, has been winning official “recognition.” The place selected for the cultural gala this year was the important Karl Marx Theater, where outstanding events are held and major figures in the cultural world perform.

Sexual diversity is recognized and there exist lesbian and gay groups that meet and do everything possible so that their voices don’t go ignored. Even still, much is lacking before people and legal institutions begin to accept homosexuality without considering those having a different sexual orientation strange or weird. The road is long and we’ve barely begun the journey.

Additionally, what could mean progress in the struggle against homophobia could also degenerate into its opposite. A parade held once a year along barely four city blocks doesn’t help in gaining acceptance of homosexuals as human beings with the rights to walk down any street or to meet in any place at any time without being attacked (verbally or physically) or excluded by their fellow citizens, or — within a closer circle — by their very own families.

It doesn’t make sense that the gay community spends the whole year being invisible and that for one day the authorities draw open the curtain hiding them so the world can see that homosexuals in Cuba have rights. Homophobia is not eliminated like this; on the contrary, during that day many people go to see the “show” and to take photos, as if it were a carnival with freaks on display.

To make matters worse, this year they stole that show from the gay rights activists, though many of them didn’t even realize it. Groups of young people shouted rallying cries like: “It’s heard, it’s felt, the youth are present” – as if they were in a Young Communist League rally. Likewise, there were posters with slogans appropriate for other political events; one’s like “Cuba demands the liberation of the Cuban Five.”

The only demand on that one day should have been around the battle for the liberation of gays, lesbians and transsexuals, for their full freedom here in our Cuba. This struggle is too intense and urgent to relegate to take a back seat

Trinidad Happenings: Gays just want equal treatment

As we continue to watch with great interest the Trinidadian developments on same gender rights issues and associated matters the public discourse is certainly quickening as this letter to the seemingly unbiased Trinidad Express which has carried several other comments in a similar vein. The writer refers to the recent historic parliamentary debate in the twin island republic, they may very well become the leaders apart from Cuba who may launch gay unions as early as July 2011 in achieving same gender rights in the Caribbean. No doubt all of these happenings will have an impact locally.

The Letter writer contributed:

PEOPLE who are against minority rights such as gay rights always find some holy verse and apply it selectively to justify their selfish interests.Gays are citizens who pay taxes and participate fully in society, daily toiling for our nation like other citizens. Gays harm nobody, contaminate nobody, kill nobody, steal nothing from anybody, chop nobody and destroy nothing in the enjoyment of their legitimate sexual orientation. They are doctors, nurses, engineers, security guards, policemen, teachers, masons, electricians and business executives who contribute meaningfully to this society. So what's the fuss?

Not everybody is meant for marriage and neither are we all meant to have children. When gays say they want their rights they are not asking for the right to kiss, have sex or prostitute or wine on each other on the street. None of us heterosexuals do that. What this minority group is asking for is mere respect for their full human dignity, respect and non-discrimination. You don't have to agree with what they do, support or encourage them. All they need is to be treated equally like everybody treating everybody fairly, without being aware of their sexuality, not to be fired, segregated, cursed or violated in any way because of their sexual orientation.

The idea by the religions that homosexuality is forbidden is great hypocrisy. Even those who are nowhere near Christian or Muslim are quick to quote the Holy Scriptures and say it is unacceptable. But the same Bible forbids many things which are now everyday habits and many foods which are now everyday delicacies.

Every day we defy what the Bible forbids, from the way we dress, what we eat, and even the way we practice our various professions. The same Bible forbids women from preaching and taking the front role, and to wear veils at church but how many female bishops, pastors and street preachers we see every day defying the Holy Scriptures and nobody has a problem with that? In India, North America, South Africa, Latin America and many other parts of the world gay rights are now recognised. Have their societies vanished and been destroyed?

Gays suffer the most in this world together with other social and ethnic minorities who are discriminated against by the majority and powerful many. Misconstrued Bible interpretations have become an effective way to silence minority rights. Remember slavery? The perpetrators of this heinous act had verses and chapters from the many Holy Scriptures justifying it, but it was still wrong and an unjustifiable act.

ENDS

Here is an interesting comment from a reader:

"Are gays really discriminated against in T&T? This comes as a surprise mainly because they are allowed to exist without being hounded and killed. I lived in Jamaica for a number of years and was horrified by the homophobic nature of 99% of the citizens. Death comes easy for gays over there, you dare not walk down the street as a cross dresser or holding hands with your partner. Don't ever be caught "fastened" it will be your last act. Gays have it good in T&T and should be thankful as a result. It could be life threatening in other countries. Be thankful and walk good.

There was a time in Jamaica when all hardwares ran out of cutlasses, machettes they call then simply because there was supposed to be a gay march, thankfully the march never happened."

Meanwhile a poll is also running on the newspaper's front page, as at this post the figures are running very close.

The poll question which can be found on the lower right hand corner of the main page reads:

Do you support calls for the government to grant equal rights to members of the gay community?

Results as at this post were:

Yes - 1051

No - 947

clearly the gap is close which suggests our Trini friends have varying views on the issue probably just as heated and controversial as us. We know there has been a rubbing off of sorts of Jamaican colourful homophobic rhetoric and culture following on "Boom Bye Bye" and other murder music over the years but the god thing is they have discontinued the public performances in some way of the inciteful lyrics and exposure to such. Let us watch this developing matter and support them where possible.

Peace and tolerance

H

Cuba Goes Both Ways on Gay Rights: United Nations vote opens room for dissent

By ACHY OBEJAS

In its 52 years, the Cuban Revolution has had a less than stellar queer history, complete with on-the-record anti-gay statements by Fidel Castro, sanctioned anti-gay persecutions and purges, and labor camps in the 1960s created specifically for LGBT people.

The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, Mariela Castro (C), marches in a gay parade in Havana, on May 15. (Photo by: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Officially, all that has changed. Fidel Castro apologized for the persecution of gays on his watch, there are no explicitly anti-gay laws on the books, and LGBT rights have found an unlikely champion in Mariela Castro, President Raul Castro’s daughter, a sexologist who runs the National Sex Education Center (CENESEX, as its known by its Spanish acronym).

But, unofficially, there’s still plenty of police harassment of LGBT people (documented by both pro- and anti-government bloggers, mostly for foreign readers), and no recognition of LGBT citizens and their families, which effectively frustrates, if not denies, access to housing, certain medical services, adoption and travel.

Cuba’s split personality on LGBT issues came onto the international stage at the United Nations in November, when it was the only Latin American country that voted to have “sexual orientation” removed from a list of discriminatory motivations for extrajudicial executions. The amendment would have changed the LGBT-specific language to the vague phrase, “for discriminatory reasons, whatever they may be.” Citizens around the globe raised such an outcry that, a month later, the international body reversed itself and passed an inclusive resolution.

In a second round of voting, to re-insert the original inclusive language, Cuba abstained.

Breaking with Cuban officialdom, pro-government Cuban bloggers joined dissident bloggers—in defiance of a complete blackout on the matter in official Cuban media—in criticizing the Cuban U.N. delegation for the anti-gay vote.

Usually, the U.N. resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions is a routine, biannual (and, as it is nonbinding, purely symbolic) referendum. In 2008, Cuba supported it without the slightest controversy even though it included the language it voted to repeal this time around.

The resolution against unjustified killing of vulnerable people in several categories—ethnic, racial, religious and sexual orientation—ultimately passed with 122 yes votes (including Cuba), 62 abstentions (including the United States) and only one vote against (Saudi Arabia).

So what happened with Cuba’s confusing series of votes, especially in light of its eventual support of the resolution?

Last month, in an unusual press release, Mariela Castro parted company with the party line on Cuba’s first U.N. amendment vote: “Even though in [the approved version of] the amendment, our nation expresses support for condemning [these executions]…in practice we have voted alongside those countries whose laws view homosexuality as a crime, five of which apply the death sentence.” (Of the 79 countries that voted in favor of the language change, 76 criminalize homosexuality.) She reminded Cuba’s U.N. diplomats that the island is a signatory to the 2008 General Assembly declaration of rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity (her complete statement in Spanish can be read at www.cenesex.sld.cu/webs/diversidad/declaraciononu.html).

The president’s daughter was not alone. Bloggers immediately joined her disapproval, but none went so far as Francisco Rodriguez Cruz, an editor at Trabajadores, Cuba’s labor newspaper. Cruz wrote a letter to Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, the foreign affairs minister, and published it on his blog. He wrote:

As a Cuban citizen, communist militant and member of the LGBT community on the island, I wish to express my total and passionate disagreement with the Cuban delegation’s vote. I wish to point out how incomprehensible this diplomatic exercise seems in light of the policies our nation has in place to deal with these issues.
Shortly after, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a short note re-affirming its pro-LGBT commitment and explaining its position: “Cuba voted in favor of the amendment…because it considered it sufficiently general and inclusive.”

Amazingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs then invited Cruz and a couple of activists associated with CENESEX to a meeting with the minister himself. “The minister attributed the first vote to ‘an unforeseen and temporary circumstance’, ” Cruz said. “I interpreted this, including the quick meeting at the ministry, as a diplomatic way of letting us know that it was a mistake on the part of the Cuban U.N. delegation. I can’t think of any other explanation.”

But in the second vote, Cuba only softened the mistake by abstaining. It could have done otherwise: 23 nations changed positions from the first to the second amendment vote, including Cuban allies Bolivia and Nicaragua, who went from absent to yes.

“Votes like Cuba’s on this occasion imply that sexual rights, reproductive rights and sexual diversity, which are all part and parcel of the same anti-patriarchal package as far as I’m concerned, are negotiable and disposable to make whatever political alliances,” Yasmin Portales Machado, a Cuba-based, self-described Marxist blogger, told the Inter-Press Service.

As the United States rallied the General Assembly to take up the language change amendment a second time, their role in the resolution was assailed by Cuban diplomats at the U.N. as a “manipulation”; they pointed out that the U.S. has a long history of being accused of extrajudicial executions at home and abroad. Mark Kornblau, spokesperson for the U.S. U.N. delegation, told Politico that the U.S. abstained on the final resolution, as it always does, because it “obscures the relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law “

In Miami, Herb Sosa, president of Unity Coalition, a LGBT organization that has provided materials and resources to gay groups on the island, accused the Cuban government of also engaging in extrajudicial executions. “There are tens of thousands of documented executions within Cuba that continue to occur without…legal representation or any sense of fairness,” he says. “Gays are routinely picked up en masse on the streets, beaten, jailed indefinitely…and persecuted by the very government grandstanding at the U.N. The U.S. also has a long way to full equality for its LGBT citizens, but at least we do have freedom, a vote and a voice here.”

Police harassment in Cuba, including arrests, has been reported on gay Cuban blogs, particularly the Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation, whom Cruz accuses of being dupes for anti-revolutionary interests. But Cruz himself has also reported problems with police on his blog. “It’s not like everybody here likes what I’m doing,” he says. “But things are getting better. Not as fast as some of us would like, but not as slow as some Castrophobes say either.”

For Alejandro Armengol, a Miami-based commentator and veteran observer of Cuban politics, what is most significant about the U.N. incident is less Cuba’s vote than the machinations behind it. “The most important thing to me is to see how forceful the gay movement in Cuba has become,” says Armengol. “This is the second time that gays in Cuba have demanded their rights and been heard. The first was the ‘little e-mail war’. “

(The “little e-mail war” broke out in January 2008 after a retired bureaucrat known for gay purges was being prepped for a return to government service, and gay Cubans and their supporters began a successful e-mail campaign to keep him from being brought back. The discussion quickly evolved into a more involved and wrenching exchange among hundreds of readers about past purges and possible reforms.)

“There are times when Cuba uses gays, or certain gays, especially writers and artists, to show how things have gotten better,” says Armengol. “That’s how they throw the focus off matters of censorship and repression, for sure. But that can’t erase that there’s real progress in this area, sometimes even more than the government bargained for.”

Source

Cuba may have same sex marriage legalized by July 2011

(right) Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of Cuban leader Raúl Castro

Reports indicate that the Cuban Parliament will seek approval of legislation legalizing same-sex in July of next year. So reported Dr. Alberto Roque, speaking on behalf of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education ( CENESEX) during a lecture at the XXV International Conference ILGA in Sao Paulo (Brazil). He was participating in a panel on public policy and sexual diversity with members of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, Germany and Cuba.

Roque spoke about the advancement of LGBT rights in Cuba during the last decade, as opposed "to is believed by the collective imagination." This progress comes from the implementation of an Education Strategy for Self-Respect Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, led by CENESEX (which is headed by Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of Cuban leader Raúl Castro) and other institutions.

He cited the work of the Cuban Conference Against Homophobia during the last three years, the creation of networks for lesbian health throughout the country, and the reinstatement of sex-change operations and support for transgendered individuals.

Roque said that in the legislative framework, discussion by the Cuban parliament of its new Family Code, which recognizes same-sex domestic partnerships and respect for transgendered people is pending the start of the new session. Despite resistance from some policymakers, it is reported that this debate is scheduled to go on in July 2011.

Finally, the activist said that after the Cuban vote in favor of the amendment that eliminated sexual orientation from the items listed in the resolution condemning extrajudicial killings, the Cuban authorities regretted being the only Latin American country taking this position, noting that it thus joined countries that legally condemn homosexuality.

In an unprecedented move, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla met with LGBT representatives to explain that this vote had not meant a change in policy on these issues but had responded to important matters at stake in Cuba’s solidarity with some African nations.

As a result, activists succeeded in pushing for an official statement from Cuba’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations where the Cuban Government expresses its rejection of extrajudicial killings, including those committed on the grounds of sexual orientation.

One wonders what the Jamaica Labour Party and the "Not in My Cabinet" Prime Minister will say to this after justifying their stance against homosexuality in general by using a farcical gay marriage debate in 2009. He said in essence that gay marriage would destroy the family as we know it and let's not forget the previous Peoples National Party administration through its then Attorney General A.J. Nicholson issued a statement towards the same effect.

see also: Opposition sides with Government against same sex marriage check out the audio by scrolling to the relevant post that matches the title.

and Gay Marriage, an invented issue by the Christian right, Gay Parenting: A view from the ground

In his presentation in parliament at the time Bruce Golding lamented that he was surprised that even South Africa granted rights to same sex partners and that his administration was not going to follow everyone else, now that it may hit so close to home let's see how it plays out and if our limp-wristed advocates will do something or even say anything on the issue. Gay marriage was only hinted to by way of a discussion in the early nineties in a newspaper article but was never really pushed as the buggery law and homophobic violence issues far out weigh the need for same sex marriage recognition by the state then and even to this day. The ceremonial and romantic aspects are unique to each couple what persons are asking for is the state to grant the same benefits such as pension etc as heterosexual couples.

Peace and tolerance.

H