LGBTI activists petition equal marriage rights

“Loving should be legal” chanted activists outside the National Assembly on Friday. LGBTI rights campaigners had spent months collecting over 20,000 signatures around the country to support a formal petition to the assembly that same sex couples be allowed to marry.

The project is proposing a change to the Venezuelan Civil Code, which is the only legal impediment to same sex marraige. Activists argue that Venezuela’s constitution doesn’t discriminate according to sexual orientation, and that the Homeland Plan 2013-2019 also promotes gender equality, protecting minorities, and not discriminating according to sexuality.