{"id":249122,"date":"2022-02-11T13:58:16","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T18:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=249122"},"modified":"2022-02-11T13:58:16","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T18:58:16","slug":"family-code-a-guide-for-debate-viii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/family-code-a-guide-for-debate-viii\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Code, a guide for debate (VIII)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The beginning of the popular consultation has brought to the fore, in a more intense way, divergent positions regarding the <\/span>Family Code<\/span><\/a>. The interesting thing is that, with more clarity, organization and systematicity, campaigns are articulated in favor of its provisions, and others against. The plurality of visions and proposals about the Cuban reality and its outcomes is noted with the debate on this law, while displaying the opportunity to air them subject to regulations of social coexistence, citizen participation formulas, institutional recognition, and <\/span>rights<\/span><\/a> of public demonstration.<\/span><\/p>\n

The current counterpoint is not new, it had its first episode around Article 68 of the then draft <\/span>Constitution<\/span><\/a>, where it was stated that marriage was the voluntary union of two people, which resulted in a break with the current formulation in the 1975 Family Code, where this institution is limited to the union between a man and a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

That process revealed the existence of an organized political force, centered on conservative evangelical churches and, in some cases, fundamentalist. For the first time, these organizations showed muscle in national politics, in similarity in content, but not in scope, with respect to similar movements in countries of the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this trend, there is also a group of organizations and activists, also diverse, who have put forward inclusive content and proposals for years, respecting minorities and broadening their rights, highlighting the different feminisms and the motley LGTBIQ+ movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The solution then found by the drafting committee of the Constitution was to eliminate Article 68, while drafting several articles on family law, which conditioned that controversial issue to be postponed until the moment of elaborating, debating and taking to a referendum the new Family Code. Rather, the political struggle for rights that that controversial formulation evidenced was postponed.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the moment of popular consultation of the Code arrived, the debates returned, this time with those and other oppositions. At this time, messages are circulating, very similar to each other, aimed fundamentally at communities of faith from the broadest Christian spectrum, but not limited to them, in a declared position of \u201cNo\u201d with respect to the Code. Even though some of these texts qualify their position by acknowledging the benefits of the proposal, they advocate \u201cdefending the traditional family.\u201d In these notes they evoke the \u201ccivic right to express their opinions\u201d and announce \u201cprophetically the consequences of deviation\u201d from the \u201coriginal model.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is noteworthy that the conservatism evidenced in the debates \u2014 formal and informal \u2014 is not reduced to the world of faith, religious doctrines and \u201cbiblical mandates\u201d on marriage, procreation and upbringing. There is also a marked social conservatism, more specifically the patriarchal tradition, especially in terms of upbringing, historically established family models and rights over children.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is striking that the substitution of <\/span>guardianship<\/span><\/i> for the formulation of parental responsibility has aroused conflicting readings. This evidences the dispute between an upbringing based on authority, obedience, a certain permissibility with violence, as well as the preponderance of heterosexual nuclei, on the one hand; and responsible, respectful, dignified parenting, without violence, and with different family models, including a random order of surnames, on the other. This dispute shows the clearly visible faces of the patriarchy that is still alive and of a new gender relationship that still has not been born.<\/span><\/p>\n

Families on good terms<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n