After the 1959 revolution, Cuba repressed gay people and many were sent to labor camps.
Rev. Elaine Saralegui, wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and her clerical collar, leads a service at the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ+ inclusive house of worship, in Matanzas, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. In recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed family law approved by popular vote allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.
“It’s huge. There aren't enough words to say what an opportunity it is to achieve the dream of so many,” said Maikol Añorga. He was with his husband, Vladimir Marin, near the altar, where at a Friday service they joined other congregants taking turns to lay offerings of white and pink wildflowers to thank God.
At the time, President Miguel Díaz-Canel told Cubans in a video message that he was pleased about the wide support that the measure received despite tough economic challenges. He celebrated, “Even in a revolutionary leader like him, there were prejudices that evolved, and he was able to understand it and help clear the way for change.”
“The sky was our ceiling and when it rained, we’d all pack into a small room,” Saralegui said. In 2015, with support from the U.S.-based LGBTQ+ affirming, they converted a house into their church, decked with wooden pews and a stained-glass cross that hangs above the altar. Underneath, a local Tibetan Buddhist group that meets here during the week stores its musical instruments in an example of interfaith partnership.
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