murdered queers. I agree that Cuban anti-gay policies are human right violations, but I think there are degrees of these.
There are no degrees of being dead. Because of the policies instituted by the Cuban government after Castro came to power, queers were killed; queers were driven to suicide; and queers were imprisoned where their deaths were brought about by the savage treatment they received.
In these cases, the deaths would not have occured when and how they did if the Castro government had not initiated and implemented the persecution of queers. It is similar to the situation in Iraq written about in The Lancet: the American invasion of that country brought about deaths that would not have occured if the invasion had not taken place. Queers died as a direct result of policies carried out by the Castro government.
> That is very bad, but it doesn't make them sysyematic state mass
murderers.
If they put into place systems that lead to early deaths/suicides of queers who otherwise would not have died, then they are murderers. The blood is on their hands.
> It depends on what the poor nation does with respect to rest
of the population, or with respect to that population, its sexual
orientation aside.
Cuba never persecuted people because they were heterosexual. Gay bars are still raided; Pedro Almodovar was rounded up in one raid awhile back. Treating the population as a whole well in some areas does not excuse or mitigate the mistreatment/abuse of a segment of it.
> Abuse of gays is intolerable bo matter what, but if the
country in question does good in other respects, that
counts in its favor in those respects. As you yourself said.
I said it counts in their favor, but these positive actions neither reduce their culpability for the crimes they committed against queer humanity or lessen the need to demand justice for those queers murdered by Castro and his government.
> I ask you the same question I asked Chuck: do you want
the Miami Cubans back in power and Cuba as whole
flushed the way the Nicaragurans were?
No. And what on earth does this qustion have to do with Castro's crimes against queers? Is my being vocal about Cuban persecution of queers the linguistic equivalent of declaring that I want Miami Cubans back in power? I do not follow the reasoning here.
Brian