(Read Part 1)

Pastor Linda De Márquez is a tenacious community organizer in Venezuela with years of experience.

In July 2011, she drafted and submitted to the Minister of the Interior a set of demands regarding religious, associational, and academic freedom on behalf of various organizations. These demands included lifting the ban on the registration of Christian churches in border states; granting legal status to the evangelical Christian church; resolving conflicts regarding church registration with the Directorate of Religious Affairs; and accrediting evangelical higher education institutions.

In 2014, De Márquez spearheaded the collection of over 80,000 signatures against a proposed bill in the National Assembly that sought to redefine the institution of marriage. And she succeeded.

Two years later, representing Venezuelan civil society at the Global Summit of Christian Leaders in Government, she publicly contradicted Caracas’s foreign policy toward Tel Aviv during a visit to the Knesset, where she repudiated the curse hurled by dictator Hugo Chávez against Israel.

In 2023, pro-regime groups known as “armed collectives” forcibly evicted her congregation from the premises where their church operated. They left her with a clear message: “to make her keep quiet.” De Márquez recounts that they were “attempting to intimidate us in order to halt our work in defense of life and family.”

Here is Part 2 of my interview with Linda.

There has been talk that Nicolás Maduro has allied himself with evangelical churches; is this true? Do you play any part in that landscape?

Nicolás Maduro bought off a segment of the leadership — a group that, to this day, remains allied with Delcy Rodríguez. It is a small clique, but one that has caused a great deal of harm. Thank the Lord, we were never a part of that.

We have already seen Nicolás Maduro officially adopt the use of “gender-neutral language” within the political discourse of Chavismo. But does gender ideology truly represent the average Venezuelan, or is it merely a matter of interest to a leftist intellectual and political elite, along with the activist class?

Venezuelan society is conservative. A very peculiar situation exists in Venezuela, because both the government and the opposition are internally divided into two groups: those who support this agenda and those who do not.

We cannot claim that the government as a whole supports it while the opposition does not — or vice versa. To be precise, feminist groups and the LGBT community comprise individuals loyal to the government as well as followers of the opposition.

What unites them is their adherence to gender ideology and the financial support they receive from the U.N., the European Union, and a wide variety of other organizations. This support has enabled them to make headway; however, I believe that the current Constitution — specifically Articles 56, 75, 76, and 77 — serves as a safeguard against this agenda.

Their leadership has ruffled the feathers of pro-government deputies such as Dilberly Rodríguez, the chair of the National Assembly’s Subcommittee on Sexual Diversity. Rodríguez has stated that she sees few obstacles to being “a trans politician” in socialist Venezuela, and that she is “living proof that it is easy to come out of the closet while being a revolutionary militant.” Are there links between Chavismo and so-called identity activism?

The deputy who goes by the name “Dilberly” belongs to the ruling party; however, there is also another gentleman named Tomás Adrián — who goes by the name “Tamara” and was formerly an opposition deputy — who likewise champions this agenda, which runs counter to the institutions of family and marriage.

As I noted earlier, within both the government and the opposition, there are those who support this agenda and those who do not. For this reason, we cannot characterize it as an agenda exclusive to either the government or the opposition — unlike the situation, for instance, in the United States, where I simply cannot imagine the Republican Party supporting such a perverse agenda.

What transpired between Delcy Rodríguez — currently the leading figure within the Chavista movement — and a group of left-wing activists on the morning of Saturday, May 9?

During that meeting — held within the framework of the 100-day review of the so-called “Program for Democratic Coexistence and Peace” — she acknowledged the presence of various social sectors loyal to the government. Among them were various groups advocating for sexual diversity. On their behalf, Rodríguez petitioned the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice to formulate a legal doctrine recognizing diversity as a fundamental human right.

What repercussions do you think this could have for the advancement of gender ideology within Venezuelan legislation?

Currently, the Constitution recognizes only biological identity; the word “gender” does not even appear within it. The same applies to the rest of our laws.

However, if the Constitutional Chamber were to blindly accede to this request, it would pave a grim and perilous path, allowing all the perversion promoted by gender ideology to be imposed upon the rest of society — those who do not agree with it.

What do you believe motivated Delcy Rodríguez to take such a step?

This is done to ingratiate themselves with the multilateral organizations that promote and fund this agenda — such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one of whose officials was appointed to the working group currently drafting the regulations for the Law on the Protection of Family, Maternity, and Paternity — and into which they intend to introduce the term “homoparental family.”

It is also because, since last April, the government has been spearheading the resumption of relations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both of these institutions argue in their global reports that the “social exclusion” of sexual minorities results in multi-million-dollar losses in Gross Domestic Product (GDP); consequently, they promote “inclusion” as a strategy to optimize the economic development of nations.

How might the citizenry resist this? What role could the church play — or organizations such as the Ibero-American Congress for Life and Family, for which you and your husband were appointed National Coordinators for Venezuela in 2024?

We have launched a signature-gathering campaign to send a clear message: demanding respect for the Constitution and saying “No” to the “woke” agenda in Venezuela.

This is a tactic that has proven effective for us in the past in halting attempts to advance this agenda, and we trust in God that, on this occasion as well, He will grant us victory and enable us to protect our country.

To this end, we have already reached out to the leadership of the major Christian organizations — urging them to mobilize through both prayer and action — and we are currently coordinating with the Catholic Church, as well as with other civil society organizations. This is a matter of national significance, one that requires the formation of a broad, united front to ensure our message is unequivocal.