News
Russian athletes appear to challenge anti-gay law
Kiss comes as country’s sports minister again defends statute
Members of All Out and Athlete Ally on August 7 presented a petition with more than 300,000 signatures to the International Olympic Committee that urges it to pressure Russia to end its gay crackdown. (Photo courtesy of All Out)
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firova kissed as they stood on the medal podium in Luzhniki Stadium in the Russian capital after they won the women’s 4 x 400 meter relay. The two women have yet to publicly say why they decided to kiss each other, but one of their teammates who was standing next to them on the podium appeared surprised by their public display.
The kiss comes against the backdrop of growing outrage over the gay propaganda ban that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law in June.
American runner Nick Symmonds criticized the statute during an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti last week after he competed in the men’s 800 meter final at the World Athletic Championships. High jumper Emma Green Tregaro and sprinter Mao Hjelmer, who are from Sweden, painted their fingernails in rainbow colors as they competed in the same event.
“I had a suggestion from a friend on Instagram that maybe I could paint my nails in the colors of the rainbow,” Green Tregaro said in a video a Swedish newspaper posted onto its website as the Associated Press reported. “That felt like a simple, small thing that maybe could trigger some thoughts.”
Russia’s gay rights record sparks calls to boycott Olympics
Playwright Harvey Fierstein and other advocates continue to call for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February over the country’s gay propaganda ban and ongoing LGBT rights crackdown.
Andy Cohen last week told E! News he turned down a request to co-host the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that will take place in Moscow in November, in part, because “he didn’t feel right as a gay man stepping foot into Russia.” Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant along with NBC Universal, did not respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on Cohen’s decision or Russia’s gay rights record.
Gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis, who was unable to compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because then-President Jimmy Carter boycotted them over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the year before, is among those who feel the U.S. should compete in the Sochi games. President Obama, retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova and a coalition of LGBT advocacy groups that include Outsports.com and Athlete Ally also oppose an Olympic boycott.
Gay New Zealand speed skater Blake Skjellerup last month announced he will wear a Pride pin while in Sochi.
Figure skater Johnny Weir, whose husband is of Russian descent, told CBS News earlier this month he is “not afraid of being arrested” while at the Sochi games.
“If it takes me getting arrested for people to pay attention and for people to lobby against this law, then I’m willing to take it,” Weir told the network.
The Russian Interior Ministry last week said authorities will enforce the country’s gay propaganda ban during the Sochi games in spite of the “assurances” the International Olympic Committee said it has received from the Kremlin that the law would not impact athletes who plan to compete in the Olympics. Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko defended the statute during a Moscow press conference on Sunday, while asserting the “freedoms of Russian and foreign athletes and guests who come to Sochi will be absolutely protected” as the AP reported.
“We want to protect our children whose psyches have not formed from the propaganda of drug use, drunkenness and non-traditional sexual relations,” he said.
Yelena Isinbayeva, a Russian Olympic pole vault champion, criticized Green Tregaro and Hjelmer during an August 15 press conference after she won her third world title at the IAAF world championships. The AP reported Green Tregaro wore red fingernail polish while she competed in Moscow on Saturday after Swedish athletic officials reportedly asked her to change their color.
“It’s unrespectful to our country; it’s unrespectful to our citizens,” Isinbayeva said as she defended the gay propaganda ban. “We are Russians. Maybe we are different than European people, than other people from different lands. We have our law that everyone has to respect.”
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.
Va. Senate committee approves resolution to repeal marriage amendment
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Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
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