National
Rash of alleged anti-LGBT attacks spark outrage in Chile
Esteban Parada Armijo died in a Santiago hospital on Jan. 30
Chilean LGBT rights advocates maintain hate crimes remain a serious problem in the country nearly two years after Daniel Zamudio’s death. (Photos courtesy of Fundación Daniel Zamudio.)
Esteban Parada Armijo, 22, died in a hospital in Santiago, the Chilean capital, on Jan. 30, nearly two weeks after two men stabbed him in the city’s Bellavista neighborhood where a number of gay bars and clubs are located. The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), a Chilean LGBT advocacy group, said Parada suffered a punctured right lung and broken ribs that damaged arteries and blood vessels during the Jan. 17 attack that took place after he left the bar where he worked.
Authorities have detained one of Parada’s alleged assailants whom Movilh identified as Fernando Medina Medina.
Movilh said Parada told his relatives before his death that his alleged assailants attacked him because he was gay. The LGBT advocacy group noted he was able to identify those whom he said assaulted him.
“My brother did not rob anyone,” said Parada’s sister, Camila Armijo, in a Movilh press release. “They only attacked him.”
Chilean media reports indicate hundreds of people attended Parada’s funeral in Santiago on Sunday.
“Todo Mejora Foundation laments the death of yet another young Chilean, Esteban Parada, in the hands of hatred and violence,” Juan Pablo Fuentealba of the Chilean It Gets Better Foundation (Fundación Todo Mejora in Spanish) told the Washington Blade on Saturday while in New York with a group of seven Latin American LGBT rights advocates who are currently in the U.S. on a State Department-sponsored trip. “Our condolences go to his family and loved ones.”
Parada died less than a month after Guillermo Aguilera Guerrero, 18, allegedly stabbed Alejandro Alfredo Bustamante Godoy in the head, throat and leg during an attack inside his home in the coastal city of Valparaíso. Movilh and Bustamante’s relatives said Aguilera had previously taunted the fast food restaurant owner because of his sexual orientation.
Bustamante, 59, succumbed to his injuries on Jan. 15.
Willian Villanueva, a small-time drug dealer, reportedly said he was going to “kill a faggot” before he allegedly shot Arturo Lomboi to death in the Santiago suburb of Puente Alto in December.
Doctors last June amputated Esteban Navarro Quinchevil’s leg after a group of six men attacked him in the Santiago suburb of Peñalolén because he is gay. A transgender teenager from the coastal city of Cartagena the month before lost an eye during an alleged anti-trans attack.
President Sebastián Piñera in 2012 signed into law a hate crimes and anti-discrimination bill that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. The statute is named in honor of Daniel Zamudio Vera, a 24-year-old whom a group of self-described neo-Nazis beat to death in a Santiago park earlier that year because he was gay.
The convicted mastermind of the attack against Zamudio last October received a life sentence for his role in the crime.
“Attacks against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexuals have not stopped,” said Movilh President Rolando Jiménez during the Jan. 20 dedication of a Santiago memorial to honor Zamudio, referring to Bustamante and Lomboi. “They continue with cruel violence.”
Jiménez reiterated his calls for the Chilean government to do more to prevent these attacks – including advancing “more and better conditions of equality in a country where everything indicates that abuses against sexual minorities are on the one hand less, but at the same time more bloody and violent.”
The Chilean Senate last month advanced two bills that would allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions and permit trans people to legally change their name and sex without sex-reassignment surgery, hormonal treatments and psychiatric or psychological evaluations.
Fuentealba pointed out to the Blade that Chile has the highest rate of school bullying in Latin America.
“If this tide of violence is to change, decision makers must allocate funds for the prevention [of] bullying and violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation,” he said.
Santiago Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello also spoke out against Parada’s death, but Movilh pointed out the Roman Catholic Church remains a vocal opponent of LGBT rights in the South American country.
“Any person, regardless of their life choices, regardless of their deeds, is a person and therefore for us is an image and likeness of God,” said Ezzati. “Everything that opposes the dignity of people is for us a grave offense; not only for this person or these people, but is also a grave offense to God who has made us in his image and likeness.”
President-elect Michelle Bachelet supports efforts to strengthen the country’s anti-LGBT hate crimes law. She also backs the trans rights bill and nuptials for gays and lesbians.
Federal Government
US Census Bureau testing survey on LGBTQ households
Agency proposing questions about sexual orientation and gender identity
The U.S. Census Bureau is seeking public comment on a proposed test of sexual orientation and gender identity questions on the American Community Survey. The test would begin this summer and continue into next year.
The Census Bureau published the request as a Federal Register notice. In its press release the agency noted that the ACS is an ongoing survey that collects detailed housing and socioeconomic data. It allows the Census Bureau to provide timely and relevant housing and socioeconomic statistics, even for low levels of geography.
As part of the process for adding new questions to the ACS, the Census Bureau tests potential questions to evaluate the quality of the data collected.
The Census Bureau proposes testing questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to meet the needs of other federal agencies that have expressed interest in or have identified legal uses for the information, such as enforcing civil rights and equal employment measures.
The test would follow the protocols of the actual ACS — with one person asked to respond to the survey on behalf of the entire household. These particular questions are asked about people 15 years of age or older. Households are invited to respond to the survey online, by paper questionnaire or by phone.
The current Federal Register notice gives the public a final opportunity to provide feedback before the Census Bureau submits its recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget for approval. The public may provide feedback through May 30 online.
The White House
Judy Shepard to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom
Nancy Pelosi is also among this year’s honorees
Beloved LGBTQ advocate Judy Shepard is among the 19 honorees who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S., the White House announced on Friday.
The mother of Matthew Shepard, who was killed in 1998 in the country’s most notorious anti-gay hate crime, she co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation with her husband Dennis to raise awareness about anti-LGBTQ violence.
The organization runs education, outreach, and advocacy programs, many focused on schools.
In a statement shared via the Human Rights Campaign, Shepard said, “This unexpected honor has been very humbling for me, Dennis, and our family. What makes us proud is knowing our President and our nation share our lifelong commitment to making this world a safer, more loving, more respectful, and more peaceful place for everyone.
“I am grateful to everyone whose love and support for our work through the years has sustained me.
“If I had the power to change one thing, I can only dream of the example that Matt’s life and purpose would have shown, had he lived. This honor reminds the world that his life, and every life, is precious.”
Shepard was instrumental in working with then-President Barack Obama for passage of the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, which was led in the House by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who will also be honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom during the ceremony on Friday.
Also in 2009, Shepard published a memoir, “The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed,” and was honored with the Black Tie Dinner Elizabeth Birch Equality Award.
“Judy Shepard has been a champion for equality and President Biden’s choice to honor her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a testament to what she’s done to be a force of good in the world,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement.
“A mother who turned unspeakable grief over the loss of her son into a decades-long fight against anti-LGBTQ+ hatred and violence, Judy continues to make a lasting impact in the lives of the LGBTQ+ community,” she said.
“It is because of her advocacy that the first federal hate crimes legislation became law and that countless life-saving trainings, resources and conversations about equality and acceptance are provided each year by the Matthew Shepard Foundation,” Robinson said. “We are honored that Judy is a member of the HRC family and know that her work to create a more inclusive and just world will only continue.”
Other awardees who will be honored by the White House this year are: Actor Michelle Yeoh, entrepreneur and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Jesuit Catholic priest Gregory Boyle, Assistant House Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), former Labor and Education Secretary and former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), journalist and former daytime talkshow host Phil Donahue, World War II veteran and civil rights activist Medgar Evers (posthumous), former Vice President Al Gore, civil rights activist and lawyer Clarence B. Jones, former Secretary of State and U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), former U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) (posthumous), Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky, educator and activist Opal Lee, astronaut and former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center Ellen Ochoa, astronomer Jane Rigby, United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero, and Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe (posthumous).
National
United Methodist Church removes 40-year ban on gay clergy
Delegates also voted for other LGBTQ-inclusive measures
The United Methodist Church on Wednesday removed a ban on gay clergy that was in place for more than 40 years, voting to also allow LGBTQ weddings and end prohibitions on the use of United Methodist funds to “promote acceptance of homosexuality.”
Overturning the policy forbidding the church from ordaining “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” effectively formalized a practice that had caused an estimated quarter of U.S. congregations to leave the church.
The New York Times notes additional votes “affirming L.G.B.T.Q. inclusion in the church are expected before the meeting adjourns on Friday.” Wednesday’s measures were passed overwhelmingly and without debate. Delegates met in Charlotte, N.C.
According to the church’s General Council on Finance and Administration, there were 5,424,175 members in the U.S. in 2022 with an estimated global membership approaching 10 million.
The Times notes that other matters of business last week included a “regionalization” plan, which gave autonomy to different regions such that they can establish their own rules on matters including issues of sexuality — about which international factions are likelier to have more conservative views.
Rev. Kipp Nelson of St. Johns’s on the Lake Methodist Church in Miami shared a statement praising the new developments:
“It is a glorious day in the United Methodist Church. As a worldwide denomination, we have now publicly proclaimed the boundless love of God and finally slung open the doors of our church so that all people, no matter their identities or orientations, may pursue the calling of their hearts.
“Truly, all are loved and belong here among us. I am honored to serve as a pastor in the United Methodist Church for such a time as this, for our future is bright and filled with hope. Praise be, praise be.”
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