Marchers in a conga line ended four days of activities against homophobia in Ciego de Ávila, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Cuba has won advances on issues like the change of name of pre-operative transgender persons, while they continue to fight for the right to same-sex civil unions.

For the first time since 1997, a transsexual woman who had not undergone sex-change surgery was issued a photo ID card this year reflecting her chosen name and gender identity, Manuel Vázquez, a lawyer with the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), a government-funded body, told IPS.

“We will continue supporting efforts to attain name changes in other cases, and we hope it will become the norm,” said Vázquez, who is head of the legal services unit in CENESEX, which reports that the family and the workplace are the spheres where the rights of LGBT persons are violated the most.

Up to now, the photo on the national ID card of trans women and men has had to reflect their biological sex.

In 1997, CENESEX managed to reach agreements with the ministries of the interior and justice to change the names and photos on the ID cards of 13 transgender people who had not undergone sex-reassignment surgery, although other civil registry documents, such as their birth certificates, were not modified. But that had not happened again until now.

Transgender people who have undergone sex-change surgery, which is provided free of charge in Cuba since 2008, are allowed to modify their ID cards. In Cuba, 19 people – two of them female-to-male transgender persons – have had sex-reassignment surgery so far, according to CENESEX.

“Now a trans person who has not had surgery is free to seek and win a name change, thanks to this precedent,” Vázquez said.

Speaking to IPS during the month-long events surrounding the International Day Against Homophobia, celebrated May 17, Adela Hernández, the only transgender member of a municipal assembly in Cuba, said she had started the process of applying for a name change on her ID card.

Hernández, a nurse and now a municipal assembly member in the city of Caibarién in the central province of Villa Clara, had to register as a candidate in the October-November 2012 municipal elections under the name José Agustín Hernández and with a photo that looks very different from the woman who won a majority of votes in her district.

Hernández is one of the special guests on this year’s agenda of educational, cultural and – for the first time – sports activities organised by CENESEX, which has led a month of anti-homophobia events every year since 2008.

On this occasion, the central activities took place May 14-17 in the city of Ciego de Ávila, 434 km east of Havana, ending with a festive march down the central avenue Libertad, with the demonstrators waving rainbow and Cuban flags and dancing in a conga line.

Mariela *, a 36-year-old mother, came to watch the conga line with her nine-year-old baby. “I haven’t taken part (in the activities), but I’m not against it,” she told IPS. “These events help families learn about sexual diversity and to respect it more, and help children and young people grow up better.”

But other people are still opposed to the campaign for respect for free sexual orientation and gender identity, which CENESEX carries out all year long, culminating in the May schedule of events, dedicated this year to families.

CENESEX director Mariela Castro said “the hardest thing is to change people’s mentalities,” in a country that is still heavily machista and homophobic. In fact, until the 1990s, “ostentatious public displays of homosexuality” were illegal.

Since 2012, the LGBT community and CENESEX have stepped up their activism demanding recognition of sexual rights as human rights in this country, which has no specific law against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Cuban parliament has not yet debated the bill for a new “family code”, sponsored in 2008 by the non-governmental Federation of Cuban Women and other institutions. Among other things, the bill, aimed at updating the family code in effect since 1975, would recognise same-sex civil unions.

In Latin America, same-sex marriage is legal only in Argentina and Uruguay, as well as Mexico City and three states in Mexico. In Brazil, meanwhile, civil unions that confer nearly the same rights as marriage are legal, and on May 14, the National Council of Justice ordered civil registries to allow same-sex couples who apply for a marriage license to marry.

Vázquez called for a law on civil unions in Cuba, and said he supported the creation of a law on gender identity, as advocated by legal experts and activists.

But until such legislation is approved, the 26-year-old lawyer’s strategy is to train attorneys and judges on how to take advantage of existing laws in cases of violations of LGBT rights

“People also have to be brave, and report these crimes,” he said.

He mentioned the first workshop on the question of LGBT rights for lawyers and judges, held in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. CENESEX also plans to expand its legal services to other parts of the country.

“There is no law on the rights of homosexuals. There is only very vague language about it,” said Raquel Fernández of the Red de Lesbianas Atenea, a network of lesbians based in Ciego de Ávila. Domestic violence and limited access to housing or jobs due to homophobia are among the limitations that lesbians suffer the most, she told IPS.

*The source asked that her last name not be used.

LGBT activists, human rights observers and police officers wait outside a courtroom in Uganda's constitutional court. Four activists had brought a case against Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

Ishita Chaudhry spent the past 36 hours listening to U.N. delegates discuss population growth and development. She noticed that on “controversial” topics, such as sexual and reproductive rights, young people’s voices often get lost.

“For us as young people, it’s really not as controversial as it is for governments,” said Chaudhry, a member of the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), at a press briefing Thursday.

“We know that we need to be empowered to claim our human rights… And we understand that access to sexual, reproductive health and birth services, and comprehensive sexuality education is a key aspect of that empowerment,” she explained.

Joaquim Alberto Chissano, a former president of Mozambique and co-chair of the task force, added, “Fulfilling sexual and (reproductive) health and rights is not only a human right… it also offers solutions to many of today’s global problems.”

Chissano – often credited for ending civil war and strengthening democracy in Mozambique – cited the links between sexual and reproductive health and national progress.

He explained that by promoting sexual and reproductive health, the international community can “fully unleash human potential, energies and talents… to nurture the human capital that countries need to reduce poverty and inequality”.

If sexual and reproductive rights are not addressed, “those who will feel the pinch more are the coming generations”, he warned.

The task force’s work – entitled “Policy Recommendations for the ICPD Beyond 2014: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All” – reaffirms values established almost twenty years ago in Cairo, where 179 governments gathered to adopt a Programme of Action that placed the human rights of women at the centre of international development goals.

The task force calls on the governments to address Cairo’s “unfinished agenda” by: ensuring sexual and reproductive rights through law; working towards universal access to sexual and reproductive health services; providing sexuality education for all young people; and eliminating violence against women and girls.

It argues that governments should expand access to safe abortion and to services for victims of gender-based violence, and that the international community should adopt a definition of “comprehensive sexuality education”.

The task force’s work will inform U.N. negotiations for a new development framework, to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) post-2015.

According to the task force, the sexual and reproductive health of young women and girls are particularly compromised. It cites that one in three girls in developing countries are married without their consent; 2,400 young people are infected with HIV every day; and up to 50 percent of all sexual assaults are committed against girls under the age of 16.

Asked if sexual and reproductive rights are often barred by social or cultural norms, Chaudhry – founder of The YP Foundation, a non-profit organisation in India – said, “I come from a country that has a broad representation, both in terms of religion (and) culture. It has a lot of sensitivities.”

She emphasised the importance of providing information and sexuality education to approach such sensitivities. “You’re not telling the young person that they should or shouldn’t do something, you’re giving them access to evidence-based information, which means that they are in the best place to decide (for themselves).”

She said, “Because there’s such a broad lack of understanding… the fear and stigma and discrimination around issues of sex and sexuality therefore remains very high.”

Chaudhry argued that some of the most effective cases in achieving sexual and reproductive rights are when governments invest at community levels in reducing levels of related stigma.

She explained, “One of the biggest misconceptions of sexuality education is that if you provide sexuality education to an adolescent, you’re going to decrease the age of first sex.”

She added, “Once you start breaking the stigma and the silence around issues of sex and sexuality, you find that even parents and religious leaders themselves have questions… They (just) haven’t had anybody else to ask.”

Tarja Halonen, former president of Finland and co-chair of the task force, posed a question of her own: would you want to perpetuate socially rooted injustices, “or would you like to be the founding father or mother with a new way of (doing things)”?

She explained that while it is important to respect traditional values, it is also important to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She emphasised the need to work with experts from schools, health centres and religious communities.

Halonen noted that social stigmas on sexuality are prevalent even in Finland – ranked the second happiest country by the U.N.’s World Happiness Report. These stigmas discourage victims of sexual abuse from seeking the help they need, while providing impunity for perpetrators.

Halonen told IPS, however, that there has been some progress. She shared her experience fighting for sexual and reproductive rights, which started over four decades ago when she was a young lawyer.

“In the late 1960s, when I spoke on behalf of young Finnish students… I said that (students) need more information for these issues,” said Halonen.

“I remembered how they answered me in Parliament. They said, ‘(Students) are in the university in order to study, not to have sex’.”

Despite social stigmas and Parliament’s neglect, Halonen was able organise sexual and reproductive health services and information for the university’s health care centres.

Her national progress for sexual and reproductive rights continued from there.

“We changed the legislation in 1970s concerning minorities (and) homosexuals. Then we changed the abortion law, little by little. Now when we look at statistics, we see afterwards that it has worked well. We have less abortions, we have better birth rates, we have fewer HIVs,” she said.

“So what are we afraid of?” she added.

Paris and Benaiah are among a number of LGBTQ youth who have found transitional shelter at the Ali Forney Center in New York. Credit: Mathieu Vaas/IPS

In New York City, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) youth represent 40 percent of the homeless youth living on the city’s streets. The Ali Forney Center is a non-profit organisation that offers them services such as emergency shelter, transitional shelter, help to reach out to family, and more specific services depending on what is needed.

Eli, Dupree, Paris and Benaiah are four young residents at one of the Ali Forney Center’s transitional shelters, where they live with four other LGBT youth. They can stay up to two years, rent-free, and enjoy a safe and stable environment.

IPS reporter Mathieu Vaas met with the young people living in one of the shelter apartments of the Ali Forney Center to hear their stories.

Lawmakers voted 77 to 44 in favour of the gay-marriage bill on its third and final reading on Wednesday night.

People watching from the public gallery and some lawmakers immediately broke into song after the result was announced, singing the New Zealand love song “Pokarekare Ana” in the indigenous Maori language.

“For us, we can now feel equal to everyone else,” said Tania Penafiel Bermudez, a bank teller who said she already considers herself married to partner Sonja Fry but now can get a certificate to prove it. “This means we can feel safe and fair and right in calling each other wife and wife.”

In one of several speeches that ended in a standing ovation, bill sponsor Louisa Wall told lawmakers the change was “our road toward healing”.

“In our society, the meaning of marriage is universal – it’s a declaration of love and commitment to a special person,” she said. She added that “nothing could make me more proud to be a New Zealander than passing this bill.”

Lawmakers from most political parties were encouraged by their leaders to vote as their conscience dictated rather than along party lines. Although Wall is from the opposition Labour Party, the bill also was supported by John Key, the centre-right prime minister.

“In my view, marriage is a very personal thing between two individuals,” Key said. “And, in the end, this is part of equality in modern-day New Zealand.”

Since 2005, New Zealand has allowed civil unions, which confer many legal rights on gay couples. The new law will allow same sex couples to jointly adopt children for the first time and will also allow their marriages to be recognised in other countries. It will take effect in late August.

“This is really, really huge,” said Jills Angus Burney, a lawyer who drove about 90 minutes to parliament to watch the vote with her partner, Deborah Hambly, who had flown in from farther afield. “It’s really important to me. It’s just unbelievable.”

Burney, a Presbyterian, said she and Hambly want to celebrate with a big, traditional wedding as soon as possible.

Pressure on neighbours

The change in New Zealand could put pressure on some of its neighbours to consider changing their laws. In Australia, there has been little political momentum for a change at a federal level and Prime Minister Julia Gillard has expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage. Some Australian states, however, are considering gay-marriage legislation.

Rodney Croome, the national director for the lobbying group Australian Marriage Equality, said that since Friday, 1,000 people had signed an online survey saying they would travel to New Zealand to wed, though same-sex marriages would not be recognised under current Australian law.

“There’s this really big, pent-up demand for this in Australia,” Croome said. “New Zealand is just a three-hour plane ride away, and many couples are going to go to New Zealand to marry. They are just so sick and tired of waiting for the government to act. I think it’s going to spark this big tourism boom.”

Opposition

Many people in New Zealand remain vehemently opposed to gay marriage. The lobbying group Family First last year presented a petition to parliament signed by 50,000 people who opposed the bill. Another 25,000 people have since added their signatures to that petition.

“Historically and culturally, marriage is about man and a woman, and it shouldn’t be touched,” said Family First founder Bob McCoskrie. “It doesn’t need to be.”

McCoskrie said same-sex marriage should have been put to a public referendum rather than a parliamentary vote. That might not have changed the outcome, however: Surveys indicate that about two-thirds of New Zealanders favour gay marriage.

The change was given impetus last May when U.S. President Barack Obama declared his support for gay marriage. That prompted Prime Minister Key to break his silence on the issue by saying he was “not personally opposed” to the idea. Wall then put forward the bill, which she had previously drafted.

Same-sex marriage is recognised in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina and Denmark.

Lawmakers in Uruguay approved a law last week that President José Mujica is expected to sign. Nine states in the U.S. also recognise such marriages, but the federal government does not.

In his speech before Wednesday’s vote, lawmaker Tau Henare extended a greeting to people of all sexual identities and concluded with a traditional greeting in Maori.

“My message to you all is, ‘Welcome to the mainstream,’” Henare said. “Do well. Kia Ora.”

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Still from TV spot in favour of equal marriage. Credit: Colectivo Ovejas Negras

Activists in Uruguay hope the passage of the “Equal Marriage Law” Wednesday will help bring about recognition that society is heterogeneous.

The law approved by the Uruguayan Congress modifies the civil code and recognises the marriage of two people of any gender identity or sexual orientation.

This small country wedged between South America’s two giants, Argentina and Brazil, has thus become the second nation in Latin America, after Argentina, to adopt same-sex marriage.

The law, approved by 71 of the 92 lower house lawmakers present for the vote – out of a total of 99 – represents “the cornerstone of a change in our society’s perspective,” said Michelle Suárez, a lawyer for Ovejas Negras (Black Sheep), an organisation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

“In Uruguay we have a very fundamentalist, homogenising view. We believe there is a kind of hegemonic moral, which we use to categorise practices and conducts,” she told IPS.

But “Uruguayan society is totally heterogeneous and should be recognised as such,” she added. “So no one-size-fits-all utopias should be imposed; instead there should be an archipelago of utopias, all of which merit a space for development and should be connected under the principle of freedom,” said the lawyer, who drafted the original bill.

The law, which was introduced by the governing leftwing Broad Front coalition, also allows gay couples to adopt children or conceive them by means of in vitro fertilisation. The partners only have to sign a legal parenthood contract in which they assume rights and obligations as parents.

The order of the child’s last names – in Spanish, both surnames form part of the full official name, with the father’s surname coming first – will be decided by the partners, or by drawing lots if they fail to reach a decision.

The age requirement for marriage was also raised, from 12 for females and 14 for males, to 16 for both. But parental consent is necessary until the age of 18.

Uruguay had already taken significant steps towards becoming the 12th country in the world and the second in Latin America to approve same-sex marriage.

The Civil Unions Law was passed in 2007, providing legal recognition of stable unmarried couples, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

But registering under the civil union law is a complicated and costly process that requires couples to demonstrate that they have lived together without interruption for at least five years, in an exclusive relationship.

In 2009, a law was approved authorising partners in civil unions to adopt children. And that year, a law was passed allowing transsexuals to change their names on official documents.

But representatives of the LGBT community stressed that there was still much to be done. “One of the goals we have to focus on is an overhaul of the laws and regulations that have to do with discrimination,” Suárez said.

The lawyer insisted on the need to improve regulations for providing assistance to victims who are discriminated against on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation.

Last week, the Senate approved the bill (with slight modifications) in a vote of 23 to 8. Opposition mainly came from lawmakers of the conservative National Party.

The Catholic Church was one of the voices that most vehemently criticised the bill.

As for public opinion with respect to the question of gay marriage, poll results vary, but generally reflect an evenly divided society.

Senator Carlos Baráibar, the only member of the Broad Front who opposed the bill, left his seat to his alternate at the time of the vote in order to avoid going against the party line.

“I don’t agree with calling it ‘equal marriage’, and the bill itself doesn’t even explain why it’s called that,” he told IPS while the vote was taking place.

Baráibar said he was in favour of recognising the legal rights of same-sex couples. But he said they were not in a situation of “igualdad” or equality with respect to heterosexuals. (In Spanish, “igual” means both “equal” and “the same”.)

“Equality means giving equal/same treatment to things that are equal/the same,” the senator said. “For me, marriage still has an essential reproductive purpose, which comes from history, biology, culture and society.”

Baráibar also said adoption by same-sex couples merited a broader, more thorough debate, and cited studies arguing that children who are raised by their biological parents have better prospects for psychosocial development than children raised by homosexual couples.

“In adoption, it is not the welfare of the adults – who can think for themselves – that must be protected; it is the welfare of the children, who sometimes are babies only a few months old without the power of judgment and who, when they grow up, discover that they are surrounded by a world that is made up of mainly heterosexual couples, while they come from a homosexual family,” he told IPS.

Gay marriage is now legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Uruguay.

It is also legal in some states in the U.S., the Mexican capital, the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, and some states in Brazil.

In addition, a gay marriage law was approved Wednesday by the French Senate, and similar bills are in debate in Colombia and New Zealand.

As the founder and executive director of the Ali Forney Centre, an organisation that helps homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, Carl Siciliano has witnessed firsthand how harsh life is for them. He started the centre in 2002, naming it after Ali Forney, one of seven youths Sicilian knew who were murdered on the street and whose deaths moved him to found the centre.

Carl Siciliano, founder and director of the Ali Forney Centre. Photo courtsey of the Ali Forney Centre.

Other experiences also influenced Siciliano. “I was really religious when I was young, and worked with the homeless,” explains Siciliano. “When I came out of the closet, I wanted to figure out a way of integrating my work with them with my being an openly gay man.”

IPS spoke with Carl Siciliano about the Ali Forney Centre, the young people it shelters, and what needs to be done to improve circumstances for LGBT youth, homeless or not.

Q: What services does your organisation offer? What do you wish you could offer but can’t?

We have workers that reach out to kids on the streets and tell them about our program. We also have a big drop-in centre in Harlem where we provide food, clothing, showers and toilets, along with mental health, medical and substance abuse services.

Young people can also stay from three to six months in our emergency housing program while they figure out longer term housing. Our centre also has a transitional housing program where young people who can get a job or go to school can stay for up to two years. About 90 percent of our young people are employed and about 75 percent are going to college. When they graduate, they usually find a job and move into their own apartments.

There are several programs I would like to build, including a housing program specifically for transgender youth, who are the most vulnerable and experience the most violence and harassment on the streets. I also want to develop a model of studio apartments with intense staff supervision for youth with mental illnesses or developmental delays who find congregate housing situations difficult to manage.

One kid from Uganda reached out to us – he said that his parents kicked him out and he was afraid he was going to get killed, so I am interested in developing an international network of providers that can help young people get out of countries where their lives are in danger to reach us or other programs.

Q: LGBT youth represent 40 percent of New York City’s homeless youth. As a small shelter, what are the biggest challenges the Ali Forney Centre faces every day?

The biggest challenge we face is the lack of resources. There are only 250 shelter beds for 3,800 homeless youth in New York City, and the waiting list to enter our shelter has about 150 to 200 kids on it. It breaks my heart to have to turn kids away every night.

Our day-to-day work is challenging. We occasionally have to deal with violence, and homeless LGBT youth have a very high risk of suicide, so we’re constantly monitoring them. We’re trying to protect them, but I wish there were more of a commitment on the part of the city to provide a safety net to these young people.

Q: What typically brings young people to the Ali Forney Centre? What kind of threats do they face?

The biggest common denominator tends to be family rejection. About 75 percent of our young people report that they were harassed or abused in their home for being LGBT. Some of them are kicked out. Others face so much violence and cruelty in their homes that they find it unbearable to stay. Too many parents don’t know how to cope with having a gay child.

Compared to straight homeless youth, LGBT homeless youth face twice the amount of violence on the streets by being gay bashed. They get beaten up by kids in other shelters, or staff in a Catholic youth shelter, for instance, will tell them they are sinners and going to hell.

A lot of them turn to prostitution, which puts them at greater risk of violence and a very high risk of HIV infection. Almost 20 percent of New York’s LGBT homeless youth has HIV. The stress and pressure of homelessness and the trauma of family rejecting harms their mental health, too.

Q: What should local politicians and international organisations such as the United Nations be doing to improve the situation of LGBT young people?

New York City has shelter systems for children and adults, but those the ages of 16 and 24 don’t fit in these systems. Local politicians must understand and recognise that it’s a disaster for these kids to be left out on the streets. If they get adequate support, these young people can get jobs, go to school and become healthy independent adults.

If you leave them on the streets, they become addicted to drugs and infected with AIDS. They will become an enormous cost and burden to society. Even if politicians look at it in term of smart public policy and not in term of human decency, it just doesn’t make sense to leave kids out there on the streets. You’re creating a social disaster by doing that.

In term of international organisations, the most important thing is to understand that homophobia creates an environment of abuse and rejection. Organisations trying to combat homophobia must focus more how it affects youth – how it makes them feel unsafe in their own homes and endangers the children’s welfare. It would be harder for conservative organisations that promote homophobia, such as the Catholic Church, to do it with a clear conscience if these connections were clearer.

The bill, which would give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples to marry and adopt children, is expected to pass the Senate after being adopted by the lower house of parliament in February.

Both chambers are dominated by the ruling Socialist Party and its allies.

However, the government has been taken aback by the size and vehemence of protests to the bill, which Catholic, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders all opposed.

The bill has come under fierce attack in a country that is officially secular but predominantly Catholic, mobilising hundreds of thousands of pro- and anti-gay marriage protesters nationwide.

“We have the honour of submitting the bill, which was comfortably adopted by the National Assembly (the lower chamber) and aims to open up marriage and adoption to same-sex couples,” said French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira.

Tight vote expected

Debate on the bill is likely to last until Apr. 12 or 13 in the Senate, after which senators will vote to approve or reject it.

The vote is expected to be a tight one as the ruling Socialist party enjoys a smaller majority in the Senate than in the National Assembly.

Broadly speaking, the Socialists support the proposed reform, as do the Greens, Communists and some centrists.

About 280 amendments have been introduced for debate, and the conservative opposition UMP party may put forward a motion asking for the bill to be put to a referendum.

Early on Thursday, opponents registered their protest by turning up at the home of centre-right, pro-bill Senator Chantal Jouanno, blowing whistles and shouting slogans, to try and persuade her to vote against the bill.

Two other anti-gay marriage groups are planning protests later in the day in front of the Senate – one with whistles, drums, tin cans and saucepans, the other involving Catholics praying.

Polarised society

Opinion polls have routinely indicated that a majority of French people support gay marriage.

On Thursday, research by pollsters CSA showed that 53 percent of the French were “favourable” to same-sex marriage, but that 56 percent opposed adoption by a homosexual couple.

The movement against gay marriage has been more vociferous than the one backing same-sex unions.

A campaign orchestrated by the Catholic Church and belatedly backed by the mainstream centre-right opposition has steadily gathered momentum.

In January, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flooded into Paris for an anti-gay marriage march.

Last month, police were forced to fire tear gas on people protesting the bill, and dozens were arrested.

French President Francois Hollande championed same-sex marriage and adoption during his election campaign last year, and his support for the legislation has not wavered throughout the turmoil.

His girlfriend, Valerie Trierweiler, has revealed that Hollande will be attending the marriages of gay friends once the legislation is on the statute books.

* Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Those against same-sex marriage in the U.S. and those supporting it traded places as the majority opinion over the past decade. Credit: Jason Tester Guerilla Futures/cc by 2.0

On the second day of oral arguments in two different cases involving the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed serious doubts about the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which codifies the non-recognition of same-sex marriage for federal and inter-state purposes.

For advocacy groups and gay marriage supporters, DOMA effectively sanctions discrimination by denying same-sex couples the same legal and economic benefits allowed to heterosexual couples.

“Marriage equality is a fundamental right, but it also has important implications for other rights – access to housing, custody of children, for example,” Cristina Finch, managing director of the Women’s Human Rights Programme at Amnesty International, told IPS.

Although a separate case heard Tuesday deals with the issue from the angle of a statewide ban – California’s Proposition 8 – both cases have been heralded as potentially landmark decisions.

“I remember supporting [presidential candidate] John Kerry when I was 12, and hearing about the idea of a constitutional amendment to ban marriage – and knowing that was wrong even at that time,” Melissa Wasser, an activist who came to Washington from Ohio to hear the arguments, told IPS outside of the Supreme Court.

“I’m 20 and I feel like we’re finally going through the [legal] steps.”

New figures from a Pew Research Center poll on public opinion toward gay marriage attest to a strikingly rapid shift in public opinion on the issue. Researchers found that those against same-sex marriage and those supporting it traded places as the majority opinion over the past decade.

In 2003, 58 percent of U.S. citizens were against gay marriage. This year, 49 percent supported it, while 44 percent opposed it.

The numbers are even starker if opinion is broken down by age group. According to the same study, 70 percent of those age 18 to 32 support same-sex marriage, compared to just 31 percent of those older than 68 years old.

Possible impact

While the case being heard regarding DOMA, which was passed in 1996, is expected to have a more decisive impact, the California case could be dismissed, as several justices have expressed hesitation to take it on in the first place.

“I just wonder if this case was properly granted,” Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been expected to be the deciding vote, wondered aloud during Tuesday’s hearings.

Kennedy was likely referring to the charge that the lawyers supporting and challenging California’s law, a state-wide ban on same-sex marriage, are not directly enough injured by it, as they are not from California or affected personally by the ban themselves.

If the justices indeed decide that the case should not have been accepted by the court, a dismissal would uphold the lower court ruling, and California would go back to granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The DOMA case, on the other hand, is more squarely in the realm of federal law. “It seems to me there’s injury here,” Justice Kennedy said Wednesday.

DOMA found its way to the Supreme Court when a woman named Edith Windsor was forced to pay 363,000 dollars in real-estate taxes after the death of her spouse because, under federal law, their marriage was ineligible for tax-relief benefits given to heterosexual couples.

“DOMA does not bar or invalidate any state-law marriage but leaves states free to decide whether they will recognize same-sex marriages,” said a brief filed by the Republican congressional group that is defending the law.

Although the court’s decisions are not slated to become public until June, the activists and supporters gathered outside the court exuded optimism.

“I am pretty confident DOMA will be struck down,” Tom Kelly, a high school student who came from Massachusetts out of an interest in constitutional law, told IPS.

Political u-turn

One element of the DOMA problem that poses potential problems in the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction, however, is the unusual refusal of the government to defend its own law.

In 2011, the Obama administration made a statement that it had found Section 3 of DOMA, which enshrines the non-recognition of same-sex marriage for tax, insurance, and social security benefits, unconstitutional. Despite an appeal from the justice department to overturn the lower court’s ruling, the administration refused to defend it in court, and a Republican Congressional group took up defending it instead.

“This is wholly unprecedented,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts said about the odd circumstances, which some say effectively amounted to a lack of challenge between the two sides.

If the administration’s agreement with the lower court indeed suggests a lack of controversy to a degree that could grant jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, the justices could dismiss the case altogether.

This possibility – that there may not, legally and politically, be enough controversy on the issue for a Supreme Court case – could indeed be most telling about the general direction of gay marriage.

“Not only do the majority of people in the United States support marriage equality, but laws on the state level are changing quickly,” Finch from Amnesty told IPS. “The time is now for this human right to be recognised.”

Colorado's Jared Polis became the first “out” gay man in Congress when he was elected in 2008. Credit: Jeffrey Beall/cc by 2.0

Even as the issue of gay marriage continues to make waves in the U.S., change is inexorably arriving in the halls of power, with a record seven openly homosexual or bisexual members of the new U.S. Congress.

While still small, the number represents a significant gain since the previous congress, which had only four.

“In 2012, we nearly doubled the number of members in congress who were LGBT, including the first U.S. senator, so 2012 was a really important moment for the normalisation of having LGBT people in the federal legislature,” Denis Dison, vice president of communications for the Victory Fund, an organisation that raises funds for “out” or openly LGBT candidates, told IPS.

The four from the previous Congress were Reps. Barney Frank from Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin, Jared Polis from Colorado, and David Cicilline from Rhode Island.

Things were looking bleak last year when Frank, a progressive in Congress who had served since 1980, decided to retire, and Baldwin decided to run for the U.S. Senate. This could have left Polis and Cicilline as the only gay voices in the House of Representatives.

However, voters in House districts across the country elected three new openly homosexual members – Sean Patrick Maloney from New York, Mark Pocan from Wisconsin, and Mark Takano from California – as well as Kyrsten Sinema, Congress’s first openly bisexual representative, from Arizona.

The current seven are Cicilline, Maloney, Pocan, Polis, Sinema and Takano in the House, and Baldwin in the Senate.

“I’m very excited this Congress [House] has six LGBT members, which is a record. While it doesn’t represent parity with the general population, at least it’s movement in the right direction,” Polis told IPS.

Asked what parity might be, Polis said that about five percent of the U.S. population is part of the LGBT community.

“You’d be talking about 20 to 30 members from the LGBT community,” out of the 435 members of Congress, Polis said.

“We also don’t have parity of representation of women. We’re also making progress but not yet there with other democratic minority groups,” he added.

“To be clear, our Congress has never looked like America,” Dison said. “Women have never been [adequately] represented, neither have people of colour. Parity would be an achievement for a minority population.

“White, straight [heterosexual] men are absolutely over-represented in politics and have been for many, many years,” he said.

The first openly homosexual member of congress, Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, was essentially forced to come out in 1983 due to an ongoing scandal involving his relationship with a 17-year-old male Congressional page.

When Barney Frank was first elected in 1980, it would be seven more years before he came out publicly. Yet times have changed. Baldwin became the first “out” elected Congressperson, when she was elected to the House in 1998. Polis became the first “out” gay man in Congress when was elected in 2008. He came out to his parents at the age of 21 and they were not only supportive, but enthusiastically supportive, he told the Metro Weekly magazine in 2009.

Polis served as an out gay businessman who helped start several charter schools in Colorado before running for congress. He and his partner, Marlon Reis, have a son, Caspian Julius, who was born in 2011. They have declined to comment on whether their child was adopted or born from a surrogate pregnancy.

Polis tells IPS that since he went to congress he has experienced no open discrimination or homophobia there from other members.

“No, I don’t think so. They all come from different backgrounds. There’s never been any issues. Everyone understands everyone is duly elected,” Polis said. “The issue is, we still don’t have benefits for our spouses. That’s a great frustration.”

Indeed, the government still does not recognise same-sex partners for any federal employees. Baldwin introduced legislation in the last session to extend federal benefits to partners of federal employees, including members of vongress, but the legislation stalled in the House.

But that may change.

“Having six members enables members of our community to be present in many different committees. It’s a different discussion when there’s an LGBT person in the room,” Polis said.

Asked whether his sexual orientation shapes his perspective, Polis replied, “Every member brings a unique perspective informed by their life experiences.

“Our body is best when we’re represented by America as a whole, the types of jobs people have, the types of families they have, in terms of their ethnic background and faith,” Polis said.

“You do see LGBT members of congress interested in other issues of discrimination, whether racial discrimination or sex discrimination, and see them part of coalitions as well, that is part of a shared experience of being in a minority,” Dison said.

Currently, there are no LGBT members of congress who are Republicans. They are all Democrats.

However, in the past, there have been two Republican members, who both came out while serving their terms – Jim Kolbe of Arizona and Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin.

And the LGBT caucus in Congress is beginning to become more diverse politically, at least within the spectrum of ideas represented by the Democratic Party. Two of the newly elected members, Takano and Sinema, were both elected in swing districts that are not solidly progressive districts, and Maloney unseated a Republican.

“I would characterise most of the caucus as progressive, I’m not sure they would characterise themselves that way right now,” Dison said. “They would probably say they’re speaking for the mainstream concerns of constituents.”

The changes in U.S. culture with respect to sexual orientation are perhaps best captured by the recent campaign speech of Mazie Hirono, a progressive congresswoman from Hawaii, who was elected to the Senate in November 2012.

“I bring quadruple diversity to the Senate,” Hirono said at a rally. “I’m a woman. I’ll be the first Asian woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate. I am an immigrant. I am a Buddhist. When I said this at one of my gatherings, they said, ‘Yes, but are you gay?’ and I said, ‘Nobody’s perfect.’”

Known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the initiative is the largest such programme in the world, credited with saving millions of lives, particularly in Africa. Since its authorisation in 2003, at the behest of then-president George W. Bush, PEPFAR has disbursed more than 30 billion dollars through bilateral agreements in over 100 countries.

The legislation that created PEPFAR requires Congressional re-authorisation this year, however. As part of that process, Congress required the national Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct an audit on the efficacy of the programme’s first decade.

In many regards, the findings of PEPFAR’s impact over the past decade are extremely positive. IOM committee chair Robert Black, an international health expert, notes that his team “repeatedly heard PEPFAR described as a lifeline” during visits to partner countries.

“PEPFAR has achieved – and in some cases surpassed – its initial ambitious aims,” the IOM committee’s 700-page report, released Wednesday, states.

“These efforts have saved and improved the lives of millions of people around the world. That success has in effect ‘reset’ the baseline and shifted global expectations for what can be achieved in partner countries.”

Yet the report also notes that much work remains to be done, particularly to safeguard “hard-fought gains”.

The reporting committee is calling on PEPFAR to increase emphasis on funding for the far more difficult task of HIV prevention, rather than treatment. It is also pushing the agency to focus more on the ultimate impact of its funding on the ground.

“The report does a good job of being explicit about these data gaps and the need for better information on spending,” Victoria Fan, an international health specialist with the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington think tank, told IPS. “As PEPFAR wants to shift from measuring funding-related activities to measuring actual outcomes, they are going to need better data-monitoring systems.”

Collective ownership

Of particular prominence in the IOM evaluation is the move towards strengthening “ownership” of PEPFAR programming by partner countries, both in finances and programmatic approach.

“Today, the ability of many countries to respond to HIV relies heavily, and sometimes exclusively, on external funding,” the report states, noting later: “PEPFAR will gradually cede control, as partner countries take on more central roles in accountability and setting strategic priorities for investment in their HIV response … such an evolution in PEPFAR’s mission is vital.”

In part, this process relates to the willingness of the U.S. government to continue these investments over the long term.

“The United States may be thinking that it’s already been engaged in these programmes for the past 10 years, and in that time the epidemic has changed,” CGD’s Fan says. “So, maybe it’s time to let other countries take more ownership and invest more financially in these programmes – that’s a reasonable assertion.”

At the same time, HIV-positive people around the world are today able to live far longer due to new treatment innovations, while a generation of children that would have otherwise risked exposure is being born without HIV. Fan notes that this creates a “moral entitlement” that may have caught some U.S. legislators by surprise.

“Remember, when you start taking [anti-HIV drugs], you have to do so for the rest of your life,” she says. “That’s a long-term commitment that U.S. policymakers may not have been thinking about when they started investing in HIV/AIDS. It’s much harder to pull funding that will directly cause people to die.”

Others have stressed that as PEPFAR moves into a new phase of post-emergency funding, particularly as the U.S. government wrestles with concerns over debt and austerity, it will be increasingly important to determine where exactly that money is going.

“Country ownership doesn’t necessarily mean governments taking control, but rather is about partnerships between national governments, international donors and civil society,” Serra Sippel, the president of the Center for Health and Gender Equality (CHANGE), a Washington advocacy group, told IPS.

“Civil society engagement is particularly important when you look at countries that are not that friendly towards women’s rights or LGBT rights. It’s very important that PEPFAR continue to support and work with civil society to make sure no one is left out of HIV/AIDS-related access to care.”

Ultimately, country ownership today may mean ensuring that the money that has already been spent has a longstanding impact and sustainability.

Keeping Congress out

President Barack Obama is set to indicate his own vision for new PEPFAR funding when he unveils his national budget proposal for 2014, slated to take place in March.

CHANGE’s Sippel points out that funding for PEPFAR won’t actually halt if legislative re-authorisation does not take place, and she is urging that the president simply circumvent the politically fractious Congress.

“Given the climate with Congress right now, we don’t think we have a positive political climate in which to pass effective legislation,” she says.

Certain PEPFAR policies required in the past by the Congress have angered some advocates, and in 2007 a previous IOM report criticised Congress for too tightly controlling how PEPFAR programmes functioned. Yet the new report now vindicates stripping these out, particularly supporting moving away from a previous focus on sexual abstinence and fidelity within marriage.

More problematic is a continued requirement that groups receiving PEPFAR funding must declare their opposition to sex work. While the IOM cautions it didn’t have a mandate to work on this issue, it does note that sex-worker groups are best positioned to deal with prostitution-related HIV/AIDS issues – and warns that their efforts are currently being hampered by this requirement.

The report also shows that PEPFAR still hasn’t figured out how to comprehensively address gender, Sippel says, with the committee researchers noting that responses to women are still “ad hoc”.

“That tells us women are still a blind spot in the global AIDS fight, despite being half of the population living with HIV,” she says. “Until PEPFAR develops a gender strategy with clear objectives and outcomes, we can’t get ahead of HIV.”