Virginia
Charges dropped against soldiers arrested for stealing Pride flags from lesbian couple’s house
Arlington prosecutors say suspects successfully completed ‘restorative justice’ program
The Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Arlington County, which prosecutes crimes, confirmed last week that charges were dropped against two U.S. Army soldiers arrested in February 2024 for allegedly stealing Pride flags from the home of a lesbian couple on five separate days between September 2023 and January 2024.
According to Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghni-Tafti, the charges against the two men — Specialist Matthew Henshaw, 21, and Private First Class Joseph DiGregorio, 23, — were dismissed after they successfully completed a recently initiated program called the Heart of Safety Restorative Justice Conferencing Program.
Under the program, the two men attended counseling sessions with facilitators associated with the program over a period of six months before meeting with the two women whose Pride flags they allegedly stole — Michelle Logan and Jenna Burnett.
In statements released to the news media, Logan and Burnett said the two soldiers appeared to have expressed remorse for their actions of repeatedly pulling down and stealing the couple’s Pride flags. Following their face-to-face conversations with Henshaw and Gregorio, the two women said the men also appear to have gained an understanding of the issues and concerns of the LGBTQ community and the need for ending anti-LGBTQ bias and discrimination.
“We believed they could potentially be amenable to change and also felt that simply putting charges on their records didn’t necessarily feel like enough,” Logan told the online news publication ARL Now. “We wanted them to try to educate themselves and understand why stealing a Pride flag isn’t just a felony but a hate crime against two people who had to live through it,” she told ARL Now.
At the time of their arrest, Henshaw and Digregorio were members of the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as the Old Guard, an elite ceremonial unit that participates in burials at Arlington National Cemetery.
Dehghni-Tafti told media outlets, including the Washington Blade, that the objective of the restorative justice conferencing program is to provide an alternative to incarceration for people charged with a crime if they voluntarily participate in the program and if the victim of the crime also agrees to participate in the program.
“It really requires people to think about what they did to the victim and explain to the victim, face to face often, why they did it and make a promise to the victim that they are going to be different and not do it again,” Dehghni-Tafti told the Blade.
According to Dehghni-Tafti, admission into the program also requires a person charged with a crime to admit to having committed the crime.
She said the program has a preference, but not a requirement, that people charged with a crime who are accepted into the program are between the age of 16 and 26. She said people charged with certain violent crimes, such as intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and murder are not eligible for admission to the program.
Also, at the time of their arrest, Arlington police said the two soldiers were stationed at the Army’s Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington. One of the base’s entrances is located about two blocks from the 200 block of South Courthouse Road, where police said the two women’s house is located and where their Pride flags had been displayed.
According to court records, Henshaw, who was 20 at the time of his arrest, was charged with three counts of Unlawful Entry — Bias Motivated — and three counts of Petit Larceny for the flag thefts that police said occurred Sept. 16, Sept. 30, and Jan. 27. The records show that DiGregorio was charged with one count of Petit Larceny for the flag theft that occurred Jan. 21.
Police have said a view of the perpetrator of the flag theft on Sept. 16 was captured on a doorbell camera on the women’s house. The couple also went public with their plight on social media, which raised public awareness of the flag thefts and generated tips that helped police identify the two soldieries, who were arrested on Feb. 2.
The records show the single charge against DiGregorio was dropped on Sept. 9 and each of the charges against Henshaw were dismissed on Dec. 23.
In a show of support and solidarity for Logan and Burnett, who are out as a lesbian couple, at least a half dozen or more residents of nearby houses displayed Pride flags on their homes after learning that the couple’s flags had been repeatedly stolen.
Virginia
Two gay candidates running in ‘firehouse’ Va. House of Delegates primary in Alexandria
Kirk McPike, Gregory Darrall hope to succeed delegate vying for Ebbin’s seat
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike and gay public school teacher Gregory Darrall, who serves as vice president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, are among four candidates running in a Jan. 20 “firehouse” Democratic primary for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.
With less than a week’s notice, Democratic Party officials in Alexandria called the primary to select a Democratic nominee to run in a Feb. 10 special election to fill the 5th House District seat being vacated by state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria).
Bennett-Parker won the Democratic nomination for the Virginia Senate seat being vacated by gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who is resigning from the seat to take a position in the administration of Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who took office on Jan. 17.
Bennett-Parker won the nomination for the state Senate seat in yet another firehouse primary on Jan. 13 in which she defeated three other candidates, including gay former state Del. Mark Levine.
The Jan. 20 primary in which McPike and Darrall are competing will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. in two polling places in Alexandria: the Charles E. Beatley Jr. Central Library at 5005 Duke St. and the Charles Houston Recreation Center at 901 Wythe St.
The other two candidates running are former Alexandria City School Board member Eileen Cassidy Rivera and criminal law defense attorney Chris Leibig.
McPike, who first won election to the Alexandria City Council in 2021, served for 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) prior to winning election to the Alexandria City Council.
“Now, Kirk is ready to bring his experience to Richmond to keep improving the lives of all Virginians as our delegate for House District 5,” his campaign website says. His website writeup says he and his husband, Cantor Jason Kaufman, have lived in Alexandria’s Seminary Hill neighborhood for 15 years.
“As delegate, we can count on Kirk to keep delivering for us — helping Virginia maintain our commitments to our schools, our first responders, and our efforts to address climate change, housing affordability, and infrastructure,” the website statement says.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights supporter and advocate, has been endorsed by Ebbin and U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). Beyer said in a statement that McPike “has a proven track record of delivering results for Alexandrians.” The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which raises money for LGBTQ candidates running for public office, has also endorsed McPike.
Darrall’s campaign website says he is a “proud progressive, lifelong educator, and labor leader running to put people first.” It says he is a political newcomer “with more than 20 years in the classroom” as a teacher who played a key role in the successful unionization of Fairfax Public Schools.
“He is a proud member and staunch supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community,” his website statement says. It says he met his husband Jose while living in Miami and the two operated a small business in South Florida for a decade before moving to Alexandria in 2015. It adds that Darrall is “fluent in Spanish, loves walking Alexandria’s neighborhoods, and is driven by a deep belief in fairness, equality, and strengthening our democracy from the ground up.”
The Alexandria Republican City Committee nominated local business executive Mason Butler as the Republican nominee for the House of Delegates seat in the Feb. 10 special election after he emerged as the only GOP candidate running for the seat, according to the Alexandria Brief publication. He will face the Democratic winner in the Jan. 20 firehouse primary.
The Washington Blade is seeking to determine GOP candidate Butler’s and Democratic candidates Leibig’s and Rivera’s positions on LGBTQ-related issues and will update this story if their positions on those issues can be determined.
Abigail Spanberger was sworn in as the 75th governor of Virginia at a ceremony on the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol on Saturday. Thousands of spectators watched the swearing-in ceremony and parade, despite the rain and temperatures in the low 40s.
Spanberger, a member of the Democratic Party and an LGBTQ ally, became the first woman to be Virginia’s governor.
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Newly-elected Attorney General Jay Jones, Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi, and Spanberger were each administered the oath of office in the public ceremony.
Republican former Gov. Glenn Youngkin left the ceremony shortly after the oath of office was administered to Spanberger and before the inaugural address.
In her speech, the new governor made an appeal to bipartisanship and looking past division in our current moment.
“To my friends in the General Assembly — on both sides of the aisle — I look forward to working with you,” said Spanberger. “I know what it means to represent your constituents, to work hard for your district, and to pursue policies you believe in. We will not agree on everything, but I speak from personal experience when I say that we do not have to see eye-to-eye on every issue in order to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on others.”
Spanberger acknowledged Virginians’ frustrations with federal layoffs and governmental policy.
“I know many of you are worried about the recklessness coming out of Washington. You are worried about policies that are hurting our communities — cutting healthcare access, imperiling rural hospitals, and driving up costs,” said Spanberger. “You are worried about Washington policies that are closing off markets, hurting innovation and private industry, and attacking those who have devoted their lives to public service.”
Spanberger alluded to the Trump administration, though never mentioned President Donald Trump’s name in her remarks.
Spanberger said, “you are worried about an administration that is gilding buildings while schools crumble, breaking the social safety net, and sowing fear across our communities, betraying the values of who we are as Americans, the very values we celebrate here on these steps.”
The new governor then spoke of her priorities in office, pledging to tackle housing affordability by working to “cut red tape” and increase housing supply. Spanberger also spoke of forestalling an impending healthcare crisis by protecting access and cracking down on “middlemen who are driving up drug prices.”
Spanberger spoke of investments in education at every level, standing up for workers (including the large number of federal workers in Virginia), and taking action on gun violence.
Virginia married couple Mary Townley and Carol Schall witnessed the inauguration ceremony from the stands set up on the grounds of the Capitol. Schall and Townley are one of the plaintiff couples in the case that challenged the Virginia constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage became legal in Virginia in 2014.
“We are delighted with the inauguration of Abigail Spanberger as governor of Virginia,” Schall told the Washington Blade. “The celebration of her inauguration was full of the beautiful diversity that is Virginia. The Virginia Pride contingent was included as a part of what makes Virginia a great place to live.”
“Such an honor to attend such a wonderful event in Virginia history,” Townley told the Blade. “The weather before the Inauguration was cold and rainy, but I believe it represented the end of a dreary time and it ushered in the dry and sunny weather by the end of the inaugural parade. Madam Governor brought us to the light!”
The inaugural parade following the governor’s remarks included a contingent from Diversity Richmond and Virginia Pride. Marchers in the LGBTQ contingent carried a giant Progress Pride flag and were met with loud cheers from the gathered spectators.
Spanberger after her inauguration signed 10 executive orders. One of them bans discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and other factors.
“By virtue of the authority vested in me as Governor under Article V of the Constitution of
Virginia, I hereby declare that it is the firm and unwavering policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia to ensure equal opportunity in all facets of state government,” reads the executive order. “The foundational tenet of this executive order is premised upon a steadfast commitment to foster a culture of inclusion, diversity, and mutual respect for all Virginians.”
Virginia
VIDEO: LGBTQ groups march in Va. inaugural parade
Abigail Spanberger took office on Saturday
The inaugural ceremonies for Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger were held in Richmond, Va. on Saturday. Among the groups marching in the parade were Diversity Richmond and the Virginia Pride project of Diversity Richmond.
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