Evangelical Churches’ Take on Same-Sex Marriage: Freedom of Speech or Opportunism?

By Repatriado

HAVANA TIMES – I defend every person or group’s right to freely speak their minds and to defend their opinion no matter how mistaken I might think it is. Freedom of speech is one of those fragile but important belongings which it is better to misuse than to limit with restrictions that are so appealing for those who hold power.

That’s why I am very happy to see Evangelical Churches in Cuba launch a campaign against same-sex marriage, it pleases me to think that there has been a small return to social autonomy and that a group is organizing itself and becoming active as citizens, taking to the public stage with their message and trying to convince others. But, is that what is really happening or is it just a figment of my imagination?

It’s a well-known fact here that the government’s positive stance on same-sex marriage isn’t out of conviction or humanism, but rather political opportunism. However, this is common for nearly every government and politician on the planet. It’s more important to know that this feigned defense of same-sex marriage serves as a trap to channel the opposition towards supporting the new Constitution created by and for the Cuban Communist Party.

Thus, I am really sad that Cuba’s well-to-do evangelical leaders, who are subsidized by their colleagues of the US Bible Belt, and who are protected by politics thanks to Cuban leaders’ interests in using them to lobby in Washington, are falling into this trap or worse yet, playing the government’s game and joining this “democratic performance” which pleases the island’s rulers so, in their eagerness to appear more modern.

I am sad that these churches, which are multiplying in Cuba’s slums and rural towns with a feverish impulse to build, aside from defending what they call “original design”, don’t similarly defend all of the Cuban people’s rights which are being violated, the same people who fill their noisy new churches every Sunday.

It still remains uncertain whether they do this because traditional marriage is more important than human life to those Evangelical Churches, I say this because I don’t see them campaigning against the death penalty, which is legal in Cuba.

I also ask myself whether not allowing people of the same sex to get married is more important for these Churches than their parishioners’ rights to educate their children freely, outside of the indoctrination that has taken root in Cuban schools, which is something they have never protested against either.

Maybe these evangelical leaders know that they can speak out against same-sex marriage, that they should speak out, to please the government, but no matter how much money they have, no matter how influential their US godfathers may be, it’s best not to say anything about the issues that really interest the Party/Government, unless they say it to God, who doesn’t normally answer.