The SanFrancisco Chronicle reports:
President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street
dance Saturday to draw attention to gay rights on the island.
Participants formed a carnival-style conga line around two city
blocks to the beat of drums, accompanied by costumed stilt-walkers.
Events also included educational panels and presentations for books,
magazines and CDs about gay rights and sexual diversity.
"We're calling on the Cuban people to participate ... so that the
revolution can be deeper and include all the needs of the human being,"
said Mariela Castro, an outspoken gay rights advocate who directs
Cuba's officially sanctioned Sex Education Center.
The communist government discriminated against homosexuals - even
sending some to work camps - in the early years of the 1959 revolution
led by Mariela Castro's uncle, Fidel. But tolerance of homosexuality on
the island has grown in recent years.
Cuba is not as queer-friendly as the above article indicates. Raul (Fidel's brother) and Mariela (his daughter, an MIT graduate) have long been supporters of gay rights. But the laws still stand --- gays cannot work for the government, cannot serve in the armed forces--not even under a don't ask don't tell
policy--, cannot get married in ANY of the Cuban provinces or at the
federal level, cannot adopt children, cannot be members of the
Communist Party unless they cease to be gay, etc., etc., etc. Just 15
years ago, they were sent to work camps to "cure" them or their
homosexuality. While things are improving, they have a long way to go. Qlinkis.ca has posted on Mariela Castro's antihomophobia campaign