{"id":25976,"date":"2022-09-26T18:15:44","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T18:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=25976"},"modified":"2022-09-26T18:15:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T18:15:46","slug":"cubavotes-to-legalise-same-sex-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/09\/26\/cubavotes-to-legalise-same-sex-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba:Votes to legalise same-sex marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cuba has voted to legalise same-sex marriage in a national referendum.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About two-thirds of the population voted to approve reforms in a new Family Code, which will also allow surrogate pregnancies and give gay couples the right to adopt children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It marks a big moment for Cuba, which saw gay people persecuted and sent to work camps in the 1960s and 70s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there was significant opposition to the reforms among religious groups and conservatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The referendum on Sunday was for a new Family Code – a 100-page document which went through more than two dozen drafts and hours of debate in community-level meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cuba’s government had backed the law change and ran a nationwide campaign urging people to approve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking as he voted on Sunday, the country’s President, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, said he expected most of the population would vote yes and that the new code reflected the diversity of people, families and beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, preliminary results indicated an “irreversible trend”, with 66% of votes counted so far in favour of the reform, electoral council president Alina Balseiro said on state television, according to AFP news agency. The law required 50% of voters’ approval to be adopted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reforms were the culmination of efforts by gay rights activists in Cuba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official attitudes towards homosexuality on the Communist-run island have changed over the past decades, partly thanks to the efforts of former leader Ra\u00fal Castro’s daughter Mariela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early part of communist leader Fidel Castro’s rule after the 1959 revolution, homosexual men and women were sent to work camps for supposed “re-education”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, many in Cuba still oppose the step, including evangelical churches and other non-religious conservatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parts of the opposition also campaigned for a “no” vote, urging Cubans to seize a unique opportunity to hand the country’s communist government a defeat in the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some anti-government activists consider the referendum an effort by the state to improve its human rights image following a brutal crackdown on all forms of dissent in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The referendum also comes during a serious energy crisis, which has led to daily power cuts affecting millions of people across the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Image caption,A child holds a banner which reads “code yes”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cuba has voted to legalise same-sex marriage in a national referendum. About two-thirds of the population voted to approve reforms in a new Family Code, which will also allow surrogate pregnancies and give gay couples the right to adopt children. It marks a big moment for Cuba, which saw gay people persecuted and sent to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[10387,9214,287,5402,7823,8307,2512,11996,8440,6583,2808,11399,423,5494,6738,5455,6560,9769,2264,10002,10840,10342,7360,5802,12309,9683,9374,3805,7400,11495,13301,8028,7584,9425,3954,5320,10415],"class_list":["post-25976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-campaign","tag-child","tag-children","tag-churches","tag-code","tag-communist","tag-conservatives","tag-crackdown","tag-crisis","tag-cuba","tag-daughter","tag-debate","tag-education","tag-energy","tag-families","tag-family","tag-gay","tag-gay-rights","tag-government","tag-homosexual","tag-human-rights","tag-law","tag-legalise","tag-marriage","tag-men","tag-millions","tag-population","tag-president","tag-referendum","tag-reforms","tag-results","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-sex","tag-surrogate","tag-will","tag-women","tag-work"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}