IGF CultureWatch

Over the past few years, the government of Cuba has earned praise for an unlikely development: a campaign to improve the status of the island's gays. Standing at the forefront of this effort has been an even unlikelier figure: Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Raul Castro, who officially assumed the Cuban presidency last year after his brother Fidel fell ill. The latest entry in this narrative was a largely laudatory profile of Espín in The Advocate, which described her as a "champion" of the island's "gay and transgender community." Espín is director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, an organization which, according to its website, promotes "the development of a culture of sexuality that is full, pleasurable, and responsible, as well as to promote the full exercise of sexual rights."

Like most Latin American countries, Cuba has long been marked by regressive policies concerning homosexuality, due largely to a machismo culture that promotes a heroic masculinity portraying gays as weak and ill-suited to positions of leadership, whether in home or government. As Espín herself says, "Homophobia in Cuba is part of what makes you a 'man.'" But while Espín should be praised for her attempt to change Cuban attitudes about homosexuality, her advocacy in this realm ought not disabuse anyone of the fact that she is part and parcel of the architecture of repression that has governed the island for five painful decades.

Whatever pleasant sounding pieties she mouths about the dignity of gay people, Espín is a communist, an appellation that ought carry no less opprobrium today than it did before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Castro's Cuba it's still 1956, the year Soviet tanks crushed a peaceful democratic uprising in Hungary, one of the Cold War's darkest moments. Cuba remains the most repressive country in the Western hemisphere; Freedom House, the international human rights monitoring organization, lists it as the only "unfree" nation in the region (on a scale of one to seven - seven being the worst - Cuba earns a seven for political rights and six for civil liberties). The time warp is evident in a more literal sense: the few cars you'll see on the streets are decades old, except, of course, the late-model Mercedes that chauffeur around the island's elite.

It may seem strange that, in this day and age, one still has to mount a case against communism, but as long as a prominent member of the family that has ruled Cuba without interruption for 50 years is the subject of a flattering profile in a major publication, the work remains sadly necessary.

As a political system, communism has killed some 100 million people, according to The Black Book of Communism, a number that increases each day the North Korean slave state continues unabated. Castro's Cuba is responsible for a relatively minor portion of those victims, but that's only because "el jefe" has had just a small island's worth of people to oppress, imprison, and murder. And Castro's treatment of gays is particularly notorious: Not long after taking power, his regime herded thousands of gay men into concentration camps for "reeducation," where they were subjected to sexual humiliation and forced labor and were murdered en masse. In 1980, gay Cubans were among the 125,000 people - "scum," in the words of the Cuban government - whom Castro allowed to leave for U.S. shores in the famous Mariel Boatlift. To underscore what he thought of gay people, Castro made sure that an ample number of violent convicts and patients from mental asylums joined the departing masses.

As she related to The Advocate and elsewhere, Espín remains a fervent proponent of the "revolution" which has wreaked so much misery and poverty on Cuba, and she thus carries all of the malicious baggage that such an avowal entails. She says that her uncle is a "brilliant man." Considered the "first lady" of Cuba, she recently told a Russian government-controlled television station that "Cuba will stay socialist after Castro's death." She told The Advocate that, despite her "faith and hopes" in President Barack Obama, "he has shown no real democratic outreach to Cuba." On top of this, she patronized the American people by saying how "proud" she was of the "miracle brought about by" their electing "a young, intelligent black man." If only she cared for democracy and racial tolerance in her own nation, where there has never been an election, and where people of African descent face systematic and rampant discrimination by the government.

Moreover, Espín's activism is largely hype, and mostly the product of people who have a vested interested in putting a pleasant face on a despicable regime. For true believers, Cuba is the last bastion of an utterly discredited political and economic system. But with gay equality now a component of the "progressive" agenda, it has become painfully necessary to portray the Cuban regime as gay-friendly.

Yet it's difficult to point to any tangible benefits that Espín's activism has accrued, other than a decision last year by the Cuban government to dispense free sex-reassignment surgeries. This is a policy of dubious merit that affects an infinitesimally small number of people, and is better understood as a propaganda tool rather than a genuine sign of concern for the plight of gays. This is the sort of thing that's fodder for those who think that our health care system should emulate that of an island prison.

But no matter how genuine or fervent her promotion of gay rights may be, Espín's activism will ultimately go nowhere as long as Cuba remains communist. And that's because homophobia has been intrinsic to communism, which, like all totalitarian ideologies, seeks to perfect mankind, often through violent means. Doctrinaire communists view homosexuality as a bourgeois affliction standing in the way of our "progress" towards a utopian society in which there is no private property, war, or discord and all responsibilities are equally shared. Same-sex attraction is held as an expression of the "false consciousness" that distracts us from the class struggle.

Like Sean Penn, who has also emerged of late as a self-styled advocate for gay rights, Mariela Castro Espín has a serious blind spot. It is the failure, so pervasive and persistent throughout human history, to understand that no political system - regardless of how wonderful in theory or the marvelous claims it makes for itself - can be considered humane as long as it inherently denies fundamental rights like freedom of conscience and speech, the ability to practice religion, vote for one's leaders, and earn a living commensurate with one's talents and abilities.

"Being considered a lesbian would not be an insult to me," Espín told The Advocate. "Being considered corrupt would be." Her first concern is of but prurient interest. As for her second, by proudly embracing a moral stain as a badge of honor, it's far too late. Gay rights are human rights, and if one is not an advocate for human rights, as Mariela Castro is most certainly not, one cannot be an advocate for gay rights, no matter how well disposed toward gay and lesbian people one may be.

Let's posit, for the sake of argument, that Cuban gays truly earned equal rights. No doubt the Cuban regime's apologists would point to its supposedly "progressive" attitude, contrasting it favorably to the Christian yahoos who run the United States. But even if Cuba legalized gay marriage tomorrow - a highly dubious prospect - it would still be a dictatorship. No matter the degree to which the status of homosexuals in Cuba improves under the communist regime, Cuban gays - like Cuban straights - would still be thrown into prison for daring to tell an anti-Castro joke. They still would not be able to organize peaceful demonstrations against government policies, never mind vote in a free election. More fundamentally, they still would not be able to leave the island of their own volition.

What sort of freedom is this?

Q. Should I go to this upcoming gay March on Washington?

A. It depends. It seems to me that if you think it will help the cause of gay marriage, or whatever else it is to be about, you might want to go. But if not, why bother. These gay marches on Washington have been steadily losing significance; the last one was a financial fiasco. If you know of any other way to promote marriage equality, it might be better to do that instead of taking the time and money to go to Washington. Of course, it is always fun to see many thousands of gays and lesbians gathered in one place. So if you lived in Baltimore or, say, Philadelphia, go ahead and go. But if you live in Chicago or St. Louis....

Q. Do you support this idea of a gay school being proposed in Chicago?

A. First of all, it isn't to be an all gay or even primarily gay school. Fewer than half of the students are projected to be gay. But the point is that it is an explicitly gay-friendly and supportive environment for gay students, many of whom have been harassed or bullied at their own local school. I cannot see any advantage in keeping them in those schools. Let them go to a place where they can do what students are supposed to do in school-learn. The argument that students should learn to cope with harassment and bullying is a nonstarter. Most of the "real world" of adults is not so hostile or threatening. And the argument that rejecting a gay school will somehow magically force schools to improve on their own is sheer fantasy. It will do nothing of the sort. The absence of a gay-supportive school has had no such effect up to now. What the gay-supportive school might do is be a role model for schools that want to do a little better. No gay school, no role models, no incentive to improve.

Q. You keep going on about how we should try to improve our community. OK, how?

A. Maybe I should do a whole column just on this. But here are a few ideas for a start. There are three aspects to this: self-improvement, public participation, and neighborhood/community improvement. In no particular order. Patronize a gay business. Thank them for being there. Remember the gay community center in your will. Plant flowers in your front yard or in a window box. If you are a male over 50, attend the Prime Timers' book discussion group.

Got the idea? Here's more. Join a sports team. Stop littering-and this includes cigarette butts. Attend the opening of an art show or a local theater performance. Limit the amount you drink at bars-no one likes a drunk-even at bars. Even if you are not religious, go to church. Churches are natural communities and a potential source of friends. Smile. Say "hello" or "morning" or even "How ya doin'" to your neighbors whether they respond or not. Get an HIV test. Floss. Prevent crimes: Stay alert when walking alone at night. Join a neighborhood group. No one is expected to do all of these, but everyone can do some of them.

Q. The recent death of "neo-conservative" Irving Kristol brings to mind the question of why so many conservatives and "neo-conservatives" are anti-gay. Got any thoughts?

A. As Samuel Johnson replied when a woman asked him why he incorrectly defined a word in his great "Dictionary," "Ignorance, Madame, sheer ignorance." I suspect that is the case here. Most conservatives, especially older ones, don't know many or any gay people, or don't know they are gay, and are wholly incurious about our lives and our struggles: They know nothing about us and want to know nothing. Perhaps they fear contamination. They may think it is an unaccountable choice, a fact they would unlearn if they asked just a few questions, of course. Some are following religious proscriptions of early biblical writers-who were just as ignorant about homosexuality as some are today. Yet others may see us as a threat to the family and society-as if more men would be gay if homosexuality wasn't suppressed. Maybe they think everyone is potentially homosexual! But mostly it is unreasoning, just an embedded cultural prejudice.

Last week I wrote about marriage-equality opponents' "Always and Everywhere" argument-the claim that since marriage has "always" been heterosexual, we ought not to tinker with it now.

In response, a prominent same-sex marriage opponent e-mailed me to explain what was "logically and philosophically wrong" with my critique. In particular, she argued that my claim that "each new same-sex marriage is a living counterexample to it" fails, because it misunderstands the rationale behind "always and everywhere." According to this opponent, the "always and everywhere" argument is not intended as a straightforward descriptive claim-in which case, a single counterexample would indeed refute it-but rather as a tool to uncover the REASON why society after society constructs marriage heterosexually.

As she put it, "Why do they keep stumbling on this idea that it's important to unite male and female in public sexual unions that define the responsibilities of male and female parents to their biological children? Is that reason still valid today?"

Interesting. Is this the right way to understand the "always and everywhere" argument? And if so, does that affect my assessment? To these questions, my answers are "Maybe" and "Absolutely not."

It's probably misleading to talk about THE right way to understand the "always and everywhere" argument, unless one is considering a specific instance of it by a particular marriage-equality opponent. After all, the claim that marriage has been heterosexual "always and everywhere" has been used by different people at different times for different purposes.

But let's suppose one is using the claim to flush out why marriage has been the way it is-that is, 'typically heterosexual almost everywhere. Why, indeed, has marriage been this way?

One huge reason is the misunderstanding and oppression of gays throughout the ages, or what we might call "heteronormativity." It is therefore no surprise that as scientific and moral understanding of homosexuality evolves, so does acceptance of same-sex marriage.

What's more, it's not clear that the reasons for heterosexual marriage would be in any way invalidated by acknowledging reasons (perhaps similar, perhaps different) for homosexual marriage. This is not a zero-sum game.

But what if there's a reason for making marriage EXCLUSIVELY heterosexual-as most (but not all) societies do? According to marriage-equality opponents, there is such a reason. It is to bind parents, and especially fathers, to their biological children.

I have two responses. First, talking about THE reason for marriage is even more misleading than talking about THE purpose of the "always and everywhere" argument. While there may be an embedded practical logic in social institutions, the underlying justifications for them are nearly always complex. Marriage looks the way it does today because of a varied and often messy history.

Second, even granting that one important reason for marriage is binding parents (especially fathers) to their biological children, it is not clear why this reason requires marriage to be exclusively heterosexual. I've said it before and I'll say it again: same-sex marriage never takes children away from loving biological parents who want them.

And here's where same-sex families provide a living counterexample in the strongest sense. It's not just that they falsify the claim that marriage is always and everywhere heterosexual (by announcing, in effect, "Not anymore it isn't!"). It is that they falsify the patently absurd claim that binding parents to their biological children is the sole justification for marriage.

No one actually believes this claim, which is why it continues to amaze me that marriage-equality opponents suggest it with a straight face. Marriage surely binds children to parents, but it also binds spouses to each other-for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health and so on. Generally, that's good for the spouses and good for society-even where children are not present.

Alternatively, opponents will make the more limited claim that this particular purpose of marriage (binding parents to children) trumps the others. But again, even if that were true, it's not clear what follows. How would allowing gays to marry make straights any less bound to their biological children?

Imagine the thought process: "Yikes, Adam and Steve are getting married! Kids, I'm outta here."

In short, whether we take the simple reading of the "Always and Everywhere" argument ("Never before, therefore not now") or this supposedly new and improved one ("Almost never before; therefore, there must be some good reason for 'not now'), the anti-equality conclusion doesn't follow.