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Activists participating in a demonstration for the rights of LGBT people in Havana, Cuba on 13 May 2017 DPA/PA Images

Cuba to scrap same-sex marriage language from new constitution, official says

The decision was made despite public support nationwide for the reform.

CUBA WILL LEAVE out of its new constitution changes that would have paved the way for legal same-sex marriage, despite majority support in local assemblies, a government official has said.

It was a surprising twist given public support nationwide for the reform and earlier remarks from lawmakers in the Americas’ only one-party Communist regime.

The measure would have changed the definition of parties in a marriage from man and wife to “between two people”.

But “the draft constitution will not define which parties enter into a marriage… So that is now out of constitutional reform discussions overall,” Council of State secretary and drafting coordinator Homero Acosta was quoted as saying by state media.

The full draft constitution was put before neighbourhood and workplace assemblies for debate between August and November. The marriage issue was the one that drew the greatest attention.

“Article 68 was the one most discussed by the people in the popular consultation, in 66% of the meetings (of citizen debate). Of the 192,408 opinions, 158,376 propose replacing the measure now in force with the one proposed,” Cuba’s National Assembly said on Twitter. 

“The (text-drafting) Committee proposes deferring the definition of marriage to the draft constitution, as a way to respect all opinions.”

The new draft, with the changes made, will be taken up on Friday by the National Assembly and then submitted to a popular referendum on 24 February 2019.

Changes

Ahead of its annual session, Acosta yesterday told the National Assembly that 60% of the text’s articles had undergone some type of change.

The commission drafting the new constitution proposed a new article replacing 68, number 82, which defines marriage “as a social and legal institution”.

The committee also deemed marriage “one of the forms of family organisation”, which “is based on free consent and equality of rights, obligations and legal capacity of the spouses.”.

Separately, the definition of marriage will be left to the Family Code, which will spell out who can be in a marriage.

Those details will be put to a referendum vote within two years of the draft transitional provision, the National Assembly said. 

The definition will acknowledge that a shared life and shared family are part of a special legal construct.

The failure to launch of the reform as expected comes during the term of the first post-Castro president, elected in April, Miguel Diaz-Canel.

It would have marked a sea-change on the island where sexual minorities were stigmatised in the wake of the Castro revolution in 1959. 

LGBT people were harassed and some were sent to re-education camps, after which they were excluded from any public appointment.

Diaz-Canel has backed same-sex marriage since taking office and said the change “responds to the problem of eliminating all types of discrimination in society”.

It has also been championed by Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela Castro, who has been a staunch supporter of gay rights in Cuba.

© AFP 2018

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    Mute Paul Corcoran
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    Oct 11th 2018, 6:40 PM

    But will anything actually happen Callinan now?

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    Mute bmul
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    Oct 11th 2018, 6:50 PM

    @Paul Corcoran: no he probably has to much dirt on those in power

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    Mute Johnny Mason
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    Oct 11th 2018, 6:50 PM

    @Paul Corcoran: after he apologizes they will ask him to pay for the car park tickets he owes that took place in the dark of night !

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    Mute @mdmak33
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:04 PM

    Surely callinan will be brought to the courts,this nearly destroyed sgt mc cabe and his family.

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    Mute Mari
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    Oct 11th 2018, 8:16 PM

    Very well written article .. it was a great read

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    Mute stgdsf
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    Oct 11th 2018, 9:26 PM

    @Mari: yes excellent summary

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    Mute Jack O’Meara
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:20 PM

    I’d like to see more light thrown in Terry Prone’s role in all this…

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    Mute Lovely weather
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:08 PM

    An organisation so corrupt they consider it normal.

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    Mute Tony Maher
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:25 PM

    just back from Cold war tour of Berlin. visited Stazi prisons. sick to the stomach that this did happen here too.

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    Mute Chris Scarffe-Cody
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    Oct 11th 2018, 10:20 PM

    No obviously nobody will be held to account that’s not the way it works, it’s the ah sure that’s grand mentality and until that changes nothing else ever will

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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Oct 11th 2018, 9:26 PM

    It looks like ‘the lunatics have taken over the asylum’ a long time ago here in ireland. as the song says.

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    Mute Smidgen Dublin
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    Oct 12th 2018, 10:34 AM

    I don’t understand The Journal’s writing standards, e.g,.: ‘…and the usual ‘watch out huns’ Christmas edition wasn’t going to cut it..’. What is this?!?

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    Mute Bewarethebeardz
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    Nov 14th 2018, 8:17 AM

    Will Callinan be charged with anything? Perjury, Fraud, Frame-up, Collusion etc. Or does he just sail off into the sunset?
    Please say it isn’t so.

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