by Maricel Drazer

While most churches in Germany, the US and other Western countries now welcome gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersexual people, that is an exception in Cuba. And that exception is called Iglesia de la Comunidad Metropolitana, a Protestant free church.

"Once I went to a Reformed Church in which they kept talking about homosexuality as a sin," recounts Fernando Cepero Romero in the congregation's social media network. "But as a homosexual, I have never seen it that way. For me, it has always been about love."

He relates that he had heard about the free church from his friends and that he thanks God for it.

His statement forms part of the church's advertising campaign "Christ loves my colors." The congregation forms part of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), which was founded at the end of the 1960s in Los Angeles as somewhere for the gay and lesbian scene to find a spiritual refuge. At that time, people who did not correspond to the heterosexual norm were badly discriminated against even in California.

The Vatican still views homosexuality as a sin, despite the presence of Pope Francis, who is seen as much more liberal than his predecessors. And other communities of faith in Cuba, too, are far less open to the LGBTQI+ community than elsewhere.

But even in Cuba, the MCC remains faithful to its worldwide credo of providing people with a spiritual home regardless of their sexual orientation or identity, as the chair of the Cuban MMCC branch, Yivi Cruz, told DW. "Our church is open to all people, but above all to those who have been excluded from or even hurt by other churches," she said.

According to the parent organization, there are MCC congregations in 37 countries on all the inhabited continents. In Cuba, there are three, with the first established in 2015. The only condition that members have to fulfil to be accepted into the congregation is baptism. Read more via DW