Mariela Castro, Daughter Of Cuban President Raul Castro, Says Father Supports Gay Rights

HAVANA -- The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro said during a rousing gay rights march Saturday that her father advocated eliminating sexual discrimination, and reiterated her own hope the country would soon legalize same sex marriage

Mariela Castro, a noted gay rights advocate and head of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education, also repeated her praise for U.S. President Barack Obama's public remarks in favor of same sex marriage, saying the American leader's words "have great value because of the influence they might have" on others.

Still, she said Obama needed to back his words with action. While the U.S. president voiced support for same sex marriage, there were no plans in the U.S. to get behind federal legislation to mandate states to recognize such unions.

Castro's comments came during a colorful march by 400 advocates through the sweltering streets of the capital. The event is linked to the International Day Against Homophobia on May 17. Participants, including transvestites and transgender people, sang and danced in a conga line.

Castro has predicted for years that Cuba's parliament was on the verge of legalizing gay marriage, but it has yet to happen. She said she hoped legislators would finally follow through when they next meet in July.

Castro said her father had voiced support for the measure privately several times, and indicated he was working behind the scenes in support of a reform of the island's family law.

"It is surely part of his tactics and strategy; it is his style," she said. "I am not going to pressure him to say things publically, because I am more interested in concrete results."

In the early years after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, homosexuality was considered highly suspect, along with other "alternative" forms of expression.

Many gays were fired from government jobs, jailed, sent to work camps or left for exile. Fidel Castro later apologized for the discrimination, saying his past views on homosexuality were wrong, and a product of the times.

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Comments

[Jeremy Heier]

10:14 AM on 05/15/2012

I haven't read meany of the comments yet but I am sure the conservatives will be all over this real soon. Castro and Obama both agree on gay marriage, they must be gay. Obama is communist because they both believe in gay marriage.

[roch1234caputo]

01:14 AM on 05/15/2012

An unual but pleasant suprise. Maybe more freedom are on there way in Cuba. Nothing has happen yet.

[zenos]

10:59 PM on 05/14/2012

Perhaps the vociferous critics can explain how, in a country where the electorate choose the candidates, and subsequently vote for or against them in a secret ballot, Cuba is a 'dictatorship'?

At any point in the last 50 plus years, Fidel and Raul Castro, or any other of the revolutionaries, could have simply not been nominated, or voted for, thereby ending their political activity.

Put simply, the Castros are heroes in Cuba and ordinary Cubans know they largely have them to thank for their delivery from an American-backed dictator and a life of stark poverty.

Cuba's real crime is to reject US economic colonialism. As with any country that is perceived to act against American interests, that alone qualifies them as a 'dictatorship' and a 'terrorist state'.

[ForeignFlier]

06:06 PM on 05/14/2012

It is ironic that the same man, in complicity with his big brother, Che Guevara and others, who sent thousands of homosexuals and religious students to concentration camps called "UMAP", is now playing the role of "the nice accepting man"..... this is the bigget BS I could think of......
Instead of ocusing so much in Gay Rights, he should be focusing more on baic human rights.....
This is a totalitarian dictatorship that took over an entire country by force and betrayal, and transformed it into its private property. This is a country where freedom of esxpression, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of travel, to name a few don't exist.....
The stay in power through fear and intimidation of the population....
The slightest expression of criticism could get you in jail.... The Castro Gestapo agents are eveywhere to ake sure that any act of protest and discontent is crushed in a matter of seconds....
The last year has been a good example of those.....
The days of the tyrants are counted.... The cubans are loosing their fear and the end of the dictatorship is near.....
Where are they going to go trying to escape.....?????
That will have to be seen...... Their options are indeed very limited.......

[CymroTramor]

11:11 AM on 05/15/2012

It wasn't too long ago that here in the good ol' USA that gays were rounded up with bar busts and taken into custody...there jobs threatened...their lives in the hands of a few police...and commitment into mental institutions was rampant....then there were laws against us that only were lifted a few years ago Texas vs Lawrence......so when you live in a glass house...even if it's the biggest and most powerful house on the block...you still shouldn't throw stones

[ForeignFlier]

01:42 PM on 05/15/2012

The difference is that "I LIVED THERE....!!!!! " You didn't....!!!!!
I know what I am talking about.... You don't.......!!!!!!

[disporting]

01:37 PM on 05/14/2012

Yeah Cuba! I'd love to go to Cuba. I really, really wish we would end the embargos. The cold war is over. Families have been split up for over 60 years. They're no threat to anyone.

[SigmundF]

04:51 PM on 05/14/2012

Cold war is over but to castro's brother, they still killing opponents, jailing disidents, beating relatives to political prisoners asking freedom for their loved ones....... castrofascism is a threat to Cubans and Cuba.

[Epilef2000]

07:44 PM on 05/14/2012

When Secretary of State Hillary and Republican Senator Rubio talk about Cuba, they demand the release of political prisoners...not the end tothe murder killing of opponents...its okay to disdain an authoritarian government, but lets stick to reality...we don't need to exaggerate the lack of political, speech, press, expression..etc rights in Cuba to convince people that a dictatorship is bad. But exaggerated claims will devoid an argument of its legitimate claims.

[zenos]

12:30 PM on 05/14/2012

"is he going to let all of the ones he threw in prison go?"

For which Fidel Castro has long ago stated his remorse, at one point homosexuals in Cuba were very badly treated indeed. Right about the time they were being similarly treated in the US, and black Americans were being treated worse than third class citizens, and anyone left of Genghis Khan was being hounded as a 'Communist'. People in glass houses etc etc.

Of course now, under Mariela Castro's NGO directorship, Cuba in infinitely more advanced than the USA, as in so many things.

[SigmundF]

04:53 PM on 05/14/2012

Castro stated his remorse about homosexuals he killed but still repressing and jailing homosexuals in spite his nefew propaganda campaing to cover their crimes.

[Lou Smith]

09:25 PM on 05/14/2012

If I honestly believed what you said to be true, I'd move there. See ya!

[Penelope Pitstop]

09:12 AM on 05/14/2012

so is he going to let all of the ones he threw in prison go?

[HonestHans]

07:33 AM on 05/14/2012

Who would have thought the USA could ever lag behind Cuba in basic human rights? The tea party, republican party and religious right are to blame. Those crazies for christ will not be happy until they turn the USA into a theocracy with a camera in every Americans bedroom. Of course on the upside, Coulter and Bachman would be at home barefoot and pregnant like jesus intended and we would be spared their boring diatribes, so there is an upside.

[hcinco]

06:34 AM on 05/14/2012

Raul Castro rounded up and jailed gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transvestites to hide his own homosexuality. Then, he let them out of prison in 1980 and sent them to the USA during the Mariel boat lift. Now his daughter is running her mouth about his progressiveness? No dice! The truth is out there, just as it exists about the pedophile and child murderer Che Guevara, the darling of idiots. But say anything about this and people will think that it's coming out of Cubans in Miami who hate their regime. Dream on.

[Yank in France]

09:11 AM on 05/14/2012

FREE TRADE with Cuba. Neither America nor Cuba need little neo-fascists based in Florida to tell us what to do!!

The majority of Americans want normal relations with Cuba. If we had opened relations with the island nation at the time Nixon commenced relations with China back 40 years ago, that country would be well along the path of democracy by now.

But then again, that wouldn't be good would it, since all the little neo-fascists in Florida wouldn't have anything to complain about any more!

[Penelope Pitstop]

09:12 AM on 05/14/2012

she doesnt think that people remember what her father did

[OPeixe]

07:27 PM on 05/13/2012

I'm certainly not responsible for the tyrants that support my rights.

[LACKOFFAITH]

05:35 PM on 05/13/2012

I could care less what Raul Castro thinks. FREE CUBA.

[SigmundF]

04:39 PM on 05/13/2012

Absurdity of the Week

How can dictator Raul Castro supposedly back gay rights, when he doesn't back the fundamental human and civil rights of any Cuban?

Isn't one a pre-requisite of the other?

(And of course, forget about all of the Cuban gays sent to forced labor camps throughout the years by the Castros).

[Yank in France]

09:13 AM on 05/14/2012

Typical nonsense coming from the neo-fascist Cuba lobby in the United States. Time to start thinking AMERICAN VALUES instead of vengeance for past wrongs in a country to which you will never return!

[Cacey]

09:30 PM on 05/14/2012

Thomas Paine, not only an expat in France but the author of The Rights of Man. FF

[SigmundF]

10:28 AM on 05/14/2012

Vengance for past wrongs????...... NO........ Justice for crimes not only in the past but the present too..... the killing of about 60 women and children escaping castrofascism in a boat was not too long ago...... the killing of Zapata Tamayo, Wilmar Villar, Juan Soto ond others were done last year...... that's your american values?????..... no, it is simply complicity....... who's the fascist then???...... of course castrofascist supporters.

[LMPE]

04:03 PM on 05/13/2012

So, will Cuba's clergy claim that this will lead to man-on-dog sex?

[johneljuan]

11:29 AM on 05/14/2012

IM SURE SANTORUM WILL REMIND THEM.

[PandaUnbound]

03:04 PM on 05/13/2012

raul supports obama, why shouldn't he support gay rights? After all, under marxism, everyone is equal, and special interest groups are more equal as obama demonstrates.

[summersvl]

10:09 PM on 05/13/2012

your statement is absurb!

[SFMuscular]

11:14 PM on 05/13/2012

It's rather evident to the world (although, sadly, not to you) that you are entirely unaware of what the word Marxism (which is capitalized) means.

[ElCojonuo]

02:27 PM on 05/13/2012

How can he not, his daughter is one.
Cuban Fathers are very protective of their children; family loyalty is VERY important.