Proudly wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and a rainbow flag in her clerical collar, the Rev. Elaine Saralegui welcomed all to her LGBTQ+ inclusive church within the Cuban port city of Matanzas.
“We’re all invited. And nobody can exclude us,” Saralegui told same-sex couples who held hands sitting on picket pews within the Metropolitan Community Church where she had recently married her wife.
These words and this type of gathering would have been unimaginable before in the biggest country within the conservative and mostly Christian Caribbean, where anti-gay hostility remains to be widespread.
Cuba repressed gay people after its 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and sent many to labor camps. But lately, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the precise to marry and adopt.
Members of Cuba’s LGBTQ+ community say it marked a milestone that has allowed them to embrace their gender identity and worship more freely in a rustic that for many years after the revolution was officially atheist. Over the past quarter century, it has progressively turn into more tolerant of religions.
“It’s huge. There aren’t enough words to say what a possibility it’s to attain the dream of so many,” said Maikol Añorga. He was along with his husband, Vladimir Marin, near the altar, where at a Friday service they joined other congregants taking turns to put offerings of white and pink wildflowers to thank God.
“It’s the chance for all people to be present here,” he said, “to collect and participate without regards to their gender, race or religion.”
The Catholic Church, in its doctrine, still rejects same-sex marriage and condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.” Yet Pope Francis has done excess of any previous pope to make the church a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people.
In December, the pope formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, a policy shift that geared toward making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.
The family law in Cuba faced opposition from the country’s Catholic church in addition to the growing variety of evangelical churches which have mushroomed across the island.
Anti-LGBTQ+ rights demonstrations have faded since 2022. But back then, evangelical pastors spoke out from the pulpit, and handed out Bibles and pamphlets within the streets invoking God’s “original plan” for unions between men and girls and calling gay relationships a sin.
Still, the measure was overwhelmingly approved by nearly 67% of voters. It got here after an enormous government campaign of nationwide informative meetings and extensive state media coverage amid food shortages and blackouts which have prompted hundreds to immigrate to the United States during one in every of one in every of the worst economic crises to hit Cuba in many years.
At the time, President Miguel Díaz-Canel told Cubans in a video message that he was pleased concerning the wide support that the measure received despite tough economic challenges. He celebrated, tweeting: “Love is now the law.”
For years, the movement for LGBTQ+ rights has been proudly led by Cuba’s best-known advocate for gay rights: Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Raul Castro and niece of his brother Fidel.
“This just brings happiness. This just makes people feel truly worthy, respected, loved, considered – a real citizen with their rights and duties,” Castro told The Associated Press.
“I believe we’ve taken a really invaluable step forward.”
Long before same-sex couples were granted the precise to marry, Castro was advocating for it, while training police on relations with the LGBTQ+ community and sponsoring symbolical ceremonies where Protestant clergy from the U.S. and Canada blessed unions as a part of the annual Pride parade.
“It was a ravishing spiritual experience for me, and I feel for those people as well,” said Castro, who heads Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education and is a member of the National Assembly. “First, our campaign was: ‘Let love be the law.’ Now, love is the law, and we’re going to maintain celebrating it.”
In 2010, her uncle, then- retired leader Fidel Castro admitted that he was incorrect to discriminate against gay people. Asked about this, she said it helped mark a turning point in public attitude.
“I believe he was honest. It was good and healthy for him to say this since it helped the remainder who were still clinging to prejudices to know that this type of thought can change,” she said.
“Even in a revolutionary leader like him, there have been prejudices that evolved, and he was in a position to understand it and help clear the best way for change.”
In the early years after the 1959 revolution, homophobia in Cuba, she said, was no different than in the remainder of the world. In the United States, homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was against the law in most states. Currently, Russia — a serious supporter of Fidel Castro when it was the core of the communist Soviet Union — is bucking the worldwide trend of greater LGBTQ+ acceptance with a multi-pronged crackdown on LGBTQ+ activism.
The previous Cuban Family Code, dating back to 1975, stipulated that marriage was between a person and a lady – not between two people – which excluded lifelong partners from inheritance rights.
The latest law goes further than marriage equality – which activists tried to incorporate within the Constitution in 2019 without success – or the power for gay couples to adopt or use surrogates. It also expanded rights for youngsters, the elderly and girls.
The first members of Saralegui’s congregation began gathering on a house terrace in Matanzas over a decade ago to sing and pray.
“The sky was our ceiling and when it rained, we’d all pack right into a small room,” Saralegui said. In 2015, with support from the U.S.-based LGBTQ+ affirming Metropolitan Community Churches, they converted a house into their church, decked with picket pews and a stained-glass cross that hangs above the altar. Underneath, a neighborhood Tibetan Buddhist group that meets here throughout the week stores its musical instruments in an example of interfaith partnership.
“This church is a family,” said Saralegui, who has a tattoo of the Jesus fish on one in every of her forearms and wears a Buddhist bracelet. “It’s a sacred space, not simply because there’s a cross or an altar, but since it’s probably the most sacred space for these people to come back to — it’s where they arrive to have a protected space.”
After receiving Communion, congregant Nico Salazar, 18, said he was glad to have found that protected space here after members of an evangelical church where he grew up attending asked him to not return when he embraced his gender identity.
“It’s the essence of the Bible: God is love, and other churches should emphasize that as a substitute of repressing and harming others with a supposed sin,” said Salazar, who was born a lady and this yr began hormone treatment.
“Sin and love should not the identical,” said Salazar, who wore an earring in the form of a cross.
“And to like,” he added, “is just not a sin.”
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