Yesterday we saw New Yorker writer George Packer miffed that Sean Penn would dare to go to Venezuela, hang out with his good friend Hugo Chávez, and then come back and call what he wrote in The Nation "reporting."
Said Penn in his article, "It's true, Chávez may not be a good man. But he may well be a great one." The only problem? As Advocate James Kirchick points out, the Milk actor is praising a dictator with a known history of putting alleged homosexuals into concentration camps.
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THEN: Fidel Castro, in a 1965 interview, decried the gay threat, telling American journalist Lee Lockwood, “Young people should not be in the hands of homosexuals."
NOW: Last February, after 49-years in power, long-time leader Fidel Castro stepped aside and handed the presidency to his brother, Raul. Though still all in the family, many see Raul's ascension as a positive move for the island, a sign that the communist government could evolve. A little over a month later, Mariela Castro, the president's daughter and leader of the government-backed Center for Sexual Diversity (CENESEX), took a progressive step when she called on the government to rewrite the 70s-era Family Code and pave the way for civil unions.
