14ymedio, Havana, 25 December 2018 — In July of this year in more than 3,000 evangelical churches across Cuba prayers were raised to defend the traditional family and criticize the inclusion in the draft Constitution of Article 68, where marriage was defined as “the union between two people.”
The Assemblies of God Churches, the Eastern and Western Baptist Conventions, the Evangelical League and the Methodist Church led the intense campaign and published a statement against equal marriage. The document stated that the “gender ideology” had nothing to do with Cuban culture “or with the historical leaders of the Revolution.”
In Christian temples and churches throughout the country, Article 68 was openly criticized, a situation that made the ruling party fear a massive No vote against the Constitution when it is submitted to a referendum in 2019. Evangelicals have experienced rapid growth in recent years and it is estimated that the Methodists alone have more than 80,000 faithful throughout the country.
With the elimination of Article 68, after the process of popular consultation, these religious groups congratulated themselves publicly, but announced their intention to mobilize against the Government’s plan to include, within two years, that same concept in the Family Code.
“The news that the National Assembly of People’s Power ruled out the proposal of Article 68, because it was shown that a majority of the population of Cuba rejected it, gives a measure of how much the thought of the Evangelical Church of Cuba represents the Cuban People,” the Cuban Methodist Church posted on its Facebook page.
The Catholic Church also spoke about it. In October the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba (COCC) published a pastoral message on the draft Constitution in which they claimed that the wording of Article 68 had an“evident influence from the so-called ‘gender ideology’,” which they adjudge “a strong subjectivism.”
See also: 14ymedio Faces of 2018
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