News
Chile civil unions bill advances
Country’s Senate voted 28-6 to move measure out of committee
National Congress of Chile (Photo by the Photographic Collection of the Library of the National Congress of Chile; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
The 28-6 vote to move the proposal out of committee took place more than six hours after lawmakers began to debate it.
“We have been given an opportunity to go one step further towards no discrimination,” said Sen. María Isabel Allende. “It is important to take steps that allow partners to gain access to rights they are now denied.”
Sen. Fulvio Rossi, who in 2010 introduced a bill that sought to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in the South American country, also testified in support of the measure.
“[The bill] is of great importance because it recognizes that there is another way to build families that goes beyond marriage,” he said.
Opponents of the civil unions measure held signs inside the Senate chamber that said “Return to Christ.”
Oscar Rementería, spokesperson for the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBT advocacy group, said on Twitter that police had to remove a “belligerent” Evangelical pastor and his supporters from the Senate chamber. Lawmakers who voted against the measure and other opponents also reacted angrily after the vote.
“Conservatism is afraid of change,” said Sen. Alejandro Navarro as he spoke in support of the measure. “I have news for you: The changes have already occurred.”
Movilh praised the vote.
“All partners who live together are going to benefit, especially the poorest families that lack any judicial and social protections,” the group said in a statement. “These families that every day seek help from our organization can now see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Movilh in 2012 filed a lawsuit with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on behalf of three same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses.
The tribunal last July gave the Chilean government a two month deadline to respond to the case. Two members of Piñera’s cabinet told Movilh during an October meeting the government has already begun the “process of internal consultations” to respond to the lawsuit.
President-elect Michelle Bachelet, who regained the Chilean presidency last month after defeating Evelyn Matthei, supports marriage rights for same-sex couples. Bachelet also backs a proposal that would allow transgender Chileans to legally change their name and sex without sex-reassignment surgery, hormonal treatments and psychiatric or psychological evaluations.
Bachelet’s platform also supports efforts to strengthen Chile’s LGBT-inclusive hate crimes and anti-discrimination law named in honor of Daniel Zamudio, a 24-year-old man whom a group of self-described neo-Nazis beat to death inside a park in Santiago, the country’s capital, in 2012 because he was gay. The convicted mastermind of the attack in October received a life sentence for the crime.
Andrés Ignacio Duarte Rivera, founder of the Organization of Transsexuals for the Dignity of Diversity, told the Washington Blade he expects senators will consider whether to advance the trans rights measure later on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The Senate is expected to consider proposed amendments to the civil unions bill in the coming weeks.
Virginia
Va. Senate committee approves resolution to repeal marriage amendment
Outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin introduced SJ3
The Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee on Wednesday by a 10-4 vote margin approved a resolution that seeks to repeal a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) introduced SJ3.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
A resolution that seeks to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment passed in the General Assembly in 2021. The resolution passed again in 2025.
Two successive legislatures must approve the resolution before it can go to the ballot. Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates have said the resolution’s passage is among their 2026 legislative priorities.
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
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Mark Levine running in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary to succeed Adam Ebbin
