News
DelBene draws on Supreme Court ruling in new effort for LGBTQ troops, veterans
Wash. lawmaker to urge Trump admin to undo trans military ban
On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of LGBTQ rights, a Washington State congresswoman is drawing on that decision to assist LGBTQ service members and veterans.
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D) reintroduced on Tuesday the Voices for Veterans Act, which will expand the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Advisory Committee on Minority Veterans to include LGBTQ veterans in its membership and scope.
DelBene, who first introduced the legislation in 2014, said Tuesday in an interview with the Washington Blade the bill is needed to address the “lack of representation of the LGBTQ community on the advisory board.”
“We’re reintroducing [it] again to continue to push forward so that LGBTQ voices are represented as they should be and they deserve to be,” DelBene said.
The Advisory Committee on Minority Veterans, established by Congress in 1994, advises the VA Secretary on meeting minority veterans needs on compensation, health care, rehabilitation, outreach and other VA benefits in addition to recommending program changes to address those needs.
Asked what congressional action she expects on the Voices for Veterans Act, DelBene said she’ll continue to build support for it, but conceded action may come at a later time.
“It also helps for us to have this momentum heading into the next Congress if we’re unable to get it passed this year,” DelBene said.
At the same time, DelBene is gathering signatures for an upcoming letter to the Justice Department and Pentagon calling for elimination of the transgender military ban in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling anti-LGBTQ discrimination is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The letter is set to made public next week.
Although Title VII doesn’t have an impact on the transgender military ban at face value, it did establish anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. Given U.S. legal jurisprudence has established laws related to sex should be subject to heightened scrutiny, or a greater assumption they’re unconstitutional, that should make the transgender military ban vulnerable if subject to judicial review.
Asked to assess how the Trump administration has responded to that court ruling, DelBene said it “has on an ongoing basis made assaults on the LGBTQ community to take down their rights, especially in the military.”
“We have to see change,” DelBene added. “The issues had to go to the Supreme Court to be addressed. We should be looking at the Equality Act, and we’re going to follow that course and we have to address disparities in the LGBTQ community across the board.”’
Although the House has passed the Equality Act, DelBene pointed out the Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is “unlikely” to take that up.
“We need to move forward and fight for rights in particular for trans rights the administration has been denying,” DelBene added.
Asked if she had any engagement with the Trump administration on the transgender military ban, DelBene said she has “not directly led yet,” but will build support for the letter, then “follow up when we release it.”
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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