Cuba, being a secular country, avoided the anti-homosexual religious overtones of its neighbours. However, repression of homosexuals continued after the 1959 revolution under the umbrella of a dogmatic interpretation of Marxism. It is a tribute to the humanistic essence of the Cuban Revolution that its leadership was able to face up to its mistakes and change course. Cuba is now set to become the most socially liberal country in the Americas.
It's going to take a lot more than gay marriage to make Cuba liberal in any meaningful sense of the word. Put another way, henceforth Cuban gays and lesbians will be free to starve and fear the secret police on an equal footing with their heterosexual compatriots.
A clue to Tucker's bias is in this gem:
The national assembly is also currently debating a proposal which will give transsexuals the right to have sex change operations. Like all medical procedures performed on the island, they will be carried out free of charge by the world class Cuban health service.
"World class Cuban health service" -- is that the one that pays its doctors so little that some of them supplement their income through prostitution? Come to think of it, perhaps the new tolerance of homosexuality in Cuba is driven by the desire to capture hard currency (no pun intended) through gay sex tourism. (And we won't even speculate on whether some of the free sex change operations will be given on a mandatory basis to straight political prisoners....)
I guess some people see what they want to see, even if (perhaps especially if) it completely inverts objective reality. It reminds me of QUIT:
Since mid-2001, QUIT! has been working, along with other Bay Area Palestine solidarity groups, to support the international Palestinian-led campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
Some of the actions and campaigns we have initiated include:
April 2007, Israeli government money out of the LGBT Film Festival. For at least five years, the Israeli consulate has been a major sponsor of the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival, probably the largest LGBT cultural event in the world. In addition to accepting money from the consulate, Frameline, presenter of the Film Festival, cosponsors film showings with the consulate during the year, and in 2005 was listed as a sponsor of "Israel in the Park," an annual event in support of Israel. In late March, over 100 members of the San Francisco Bay Area LGBT/queer community sent a letter to Frameline, presenter of the annual asking them to honor the cultural boycott of Israel by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate.
Funny, the Palestinian Authority (much less Hamas) doesn't pony up sponsorship dollars for LGBT causes. In fact, when a group of Arab lesbians recently held a conference, the only safe place they could find to meet was in Israel.
That's the wonderful thing about True Believers on the Left. They will voluntarily walk as livestock into the slaughterhouse to prove what nice guys the Stalinist butchers are.
No comments:
Post a Comment