your scorn means less than nothing to us¶

I meant it when I said "your scorn means less than nothing to us" in the face of the material reality of the Family Code, so I'm not planning to respond directly to any of the nonsense "arguments."

HOWEVER! I do find it pretty hilarious how often I'm seeing variations on "And why was the church able to organize opposition? 🤨" or "Why did they even leave it up to a vote?"

As if these same people wouldn't decry "AUTHORITARIAN REDFASH TANKIES!" for crushing all opposition. The goal wasn't simply to let gay people get married, it was to completely transform society through building population-level familiarity with a variety of nuanced topics from queerness to subtle forms of gender bias in domestic roles to the agency of children and elders. They didn't just decree from on high "This is the law now. Take it or take it." That would create the perfect environment for breeding regressive backlash. Y'know, kind of like how US conservatives have spent the entire time since Roe v. Wade obsessed with getting it overturned? The Cuban communists have enough respect for their own people to trust that they could learn and grow out of centuries of regressive cultural norms. Those religiously-informed "common sense" notions of the "natural family" didn't stand a chance against this level of education. The people of Cuba made this law, not some disconnected ruling class deciding what's best for them. And as result, it is now rooted deeply into the soil of social life. It would take nothing less than a bloody counter-revolution, overturning the whole society to destroy this law. Compare that to the US's feeble grasp on "gay rights": a 9-year-old statement issued by 5 unelected judges saying "yeah I guess the gays can marry if they want." The current supreme Court has Obergefell in its crosshairs as we speak. The population of the US has no ownership over any of the "rights" (really, temporary privileges) afforded by a compendium of laws and court rulings that govern our lives. For every protection, there is a powerful coalition working to overthrow it, and they have bases of support. Queer people are in tremendous danger here, and we have no one to protect us but ourselves. In Cuba, not only is there a strong state, run by a party regimented under the banner of liberation, but there's also an entire society that has collectively affirmed those rights we lack. (Also, it's hilarious to point to the power of the churches to counter-organize, when that is the direct result of US-based evangelical organizations pumping money into the most regressive Cuban churches. Again, if this was cracked down on, liberals would whine about that too!)