Mariela Castro Endorses Obama

Speaking at a San Francisco event, Cuban LGBT rights activist Mariela Castro yesterday said she would vote to re-elect President Obama, were she an American. Mariela is the niece of Fidel Castro and the daughter of current Cuban president Raul Castro.

“If we don’t change our patriarchal and homophobic culture … we cannot advance as a new society, and that’s what we want — the power of emancipation through socialism,” she said. “We will establish relationships on the basis of social justice and social equality …. It seems like a Utopia, but we can change it.” During her 90-minute appearance in San Francisco, she hailed Barack Obama’s support for homosexual “marriage” and the loosening of U.S.-Cuba travel restrictions, saying: “I would vote for President Obama.”

The Romney campaign has called on the president to reject Castro’s endorsement.

“President Obama should disavow the endorsement of the daughter of Cuban dictator Raul Castro,” Romney campaign adviser Alberto Martinez said in a statement. “It is galling that an envoy from a Communist regime would come to our country and lecture the American people on who to vote for while the regime refuses to hold free and fair elections and systematically violates the human rights of its people,” said Martinez. “The decision by the Obama Administration to welcome Mariela Castro to our shores — a decision that has received rightful criticism from both Republicans and Democrats — continues to be an egregious affront to the people of Cuba and those who love freedom everywhere.”

Regarding the “decision to welcome Mariela Castro” to the United States, both the Romney campaign and the linked wingnut site fail to mention the inconvenient fact that Castro was granted THREE such visas by the Bush II administration.