MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cuban voters agree to same-sex marriage

Justice has been done, Díaz-Canel said

With over 66% votes in favor, Cubans have approved through a referendum the introduction of same-sex marriage and other novelties, the Electoral Council announced Monday. The agency also considered the trend to be “irreversible.” Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel said that “justice has been done.” The new legislation will replace the norms dating back to 1975.

Cuba's government had stressed before Sunday's national vote that a “Yes” triumph would be a victory for the socialist system. According to Granma, 66.87% of Cubans endorsed the new initiative. The newspaper quoted the National Electoral Council figures saying 3,936,790 Cubans had voted for the “Yes!.” Granma said the results showed the country's stance toward inclusion, empathy, and love. “The majority has chosen a new Code of Families, one that portrays the country we are and the one we want to be, and responds to the humanist essences of the Constitution of the Republic and of the State of law and social justice that is based thereupon.”

According to Cuban law, more than 50% of the votes were enough for the new rights to sexual minorities to be included in the new Family Code put before popular consultation. “The new code has been a struggle of the LGTB community, which has been discriminated against since the beginning of the Revolution,” Cuban playwright Yunior García, founder of the opposition platform Archipiélago and currently in Spain, told TN.

Government sources also labeled the “No” vote as “counterrevolutionary” since it entailed a misogynist and homophobic approach.

The National Electoral Council said 5,806,078 (out of of 8,425,147 registered voters)went to the polls for a 68.91% turnout.

Gay support groups locally and globally have praised the outcome of the plebiscite which brought respect for the existence of “diverse forms of family” while passing special rules against violence within the family, in favor of children and the elderly.