Cubans Have Overwhelmingly Voted To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage In A Historic Referendum

More than two-thirds of Cubans have voted to legalize same-sex marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children after a national referendum on Sunday Sep. 25.

Around 74% of the population voted in the referendum and more than 3 million people, 66.87% of the valid votes, approved the new Family Code.

The 100-page referendum aimed to reform the Family Code and will provide more rights to the LGBTQ community, women, children and the elderly.

The current government backed the reforms, urging people to approve it.

The Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, tweeted on Monday, “Love is now the law”.

He said that passing the law was a way to “pay a debt to various generations of Cubans whose domestic plans had been waiting years for this law,” according to the New York Times.

“As of today, we will be a better nation,” he said.

However, the reform faced serious backlash from the evangelical movement, which opposed increasing LGBTQ rights to protect the concept of a “traditional family.”

Meanwhile, some human rights organizations have also criticized the government for using a referendum to legalize same-sex marriage.

“The people’s will should certainly guide public policy, but not dictate whether well-established international human rights will be upheld… Cuban authorities should themselves uphold these rights, including if the referendum fails to do so, Human Rights Watch researchers said.

At the beginning of Fidel Castro’s rule in the late 1950s, gay men and lesbians were sent to “re-education” work camps.

Homosexuality became legal in Cuba in 1979, but conservative ideology and sexism has led to ongoing discrimination to LGBTQ people.

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