The drafting commission of the new Cuban constitutional project, chaired by former President and current First Secretary of the Communist Party, Raul Castro Ruz, has approved changing the final text in relation to equal marriage.

The commission, according to a tweet posted by the Parliament Presidency, has allegedly decided not to include "defining the concept of marriage", and to leave it pending to a future reform of the Family Code, to propose in a two-year lapse, which should clarify "who can be the subjects in a marriage".

This proposal to reform the Family Code would be accompanied by a process of popular consultation and referendum, according to the information of the Parliament Presidency through its Twitter account.

The enormous weight of machismo and prejudices in Cuban society

Finally, the strong burden of prejudice and machismo present in very broad sectors of Cuban society have managed to stop, and in a certain way reverse, the progress that the definition of marriage in the Constitution project stated as "the free union of two people”, with all its implications of legal and civil rights.

The Catholic Church and the Evangelicals deployed all their skills to boycott the proposal of equal marriage and they found fertile field in a society marked by an entrenched machismo and numerous prejudices.

The constitutional commission appears thus to have been forced to review the text based on the results of the same popular consultation, carried out through neighborhood assemblies and in work centers.

The figures provided by the Secretary of the Council of State at the meeting of the constitutional commission leaves no room for doubt. The issue of equal marriage was the issue of debate, clarification and opinion in 66% of the total of popular meetings held.

As many as 192,408 opinions and proposals were collected, 158,377 of which proposed to maintain the concept of marriage, as the union of a man and a woman, as defined by the 1976 Constitution still in force.

First reaction of the sexual diversity community; trying to minimize damage

Deputy Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of Raúl Castro, and the most outstanding defender of the rights of the broad community of sexual diversity in Cuba, as Director of CENESEX (National Center for Sexual Education), reacted quickly trying to minimize damages and repercussions.

Mariela Castro described the Tweet of the National Assembly as a message bearer of an "inappropriate approach ... that many people are interpreting as a setback", clarifying that the substitutions of terms of "people by spouses" does not close the door to the proposed changes. And that according to her that keeps the road open.

According to Castro’s message, the constitutional text adds new recognitions such as de facto unions, without specifying gender. De facto unions which are, according to Castro, "in the long run and according to statistics, the most used in our society”. She avoids entering into the argument that this does not automatically imply recognizing the civil and legal rights of those people (inheritance, social rights, adoptions and others).

Mariela Castro also stated in her message that the change of terms does not imply having given in to what she describes as "fundamentalist and retrograde blackmail", in reference to the campaign designed and implemented by various churches in the country.

The changes in the constitutional draft will ultimately need to be approved in the plenary session of Parliament.

Difficult to say whether there will be room for an article by article vote, given the controversial generated over gender equality.

The most likely scenario is that the text (which will be submitted to a referendum on 24 February 2019), will be submitted to the Parliament as a full text. It remains to be seen whether marriage equality as stated in the draft will be written off completely.