The Cuban government has announced a referendum on the final draft of a new family code that would extend marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples will take place on Sept.
25. “It will benefit everyone; which shows its inclusive, protective and equal character,” said Justice Minister Oscar Silvera Martínez, as quoted in Granma, the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper, on Friday.
The National Assembly late last year approved the draft family code. A “popular consultation” ended on April 30. Tremenda Nota, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Cuba, reported the last of the family code’s 25 drafts was presented to President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other officials on June 6.
Díaz-Canel and Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who is the director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, are among those who publicly support marriage equality.