• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Germany passes law for Same-Sex-Marriage

R

RinsFury

Member
I'm shocked this wasn't already a thing in Germany. How is this even up to a vote? It should be considered a human right.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
oh wait it's been too long

penny-dance-party.gif


i forgot what it's like to be happy.
 
guggnichso

guggnichso

Banned
hobblygobbly said:
1. Americans made up that stupid title for themselves, no one thinks about "leader of the free world" besides Americans.
2. German society has been much more accepting than U.S concerning homosexuality for a very long time, really getting traction around the counter-culture era.
3. Gay marriage comes through the legislative process in Europe and other parts of the world, unlike it did in the U.S, and it had to have further protections by executive order IIRC.
4. Germany has much better protection laws concerning discrimination of LGBTQ as of now and for much longer than the U.S, especially for transgender people than most countries even where marriage is legal, such as issues concerning their healthcare.
5. Gay marriage is not a barometer for the life of LGBTQ people in a country. Another country I have stayed in, South Africa, has had full LGBTQ rights since the 90s, but it's not that great for LGBTQ people in general due to bad enforcement and general societal views. Views on LGBTQ in the U.S has only changed in very recent years and still are behind compared to countries that don't even have gay marriage like Germany.

Open queer artistic expression and gay lifestyle itself has been in some Germany cities, famously Berlin, since the 1920s. It never disappeared. It's among the greatest places to be for LGBTQ.

It's no excuse for no gay marriage, but it's really dumb to snub it off if you don't understand Germany. One of the reasons why it hasn't been done for so long is because of Merkel being in power for 12 years now, her own party has LGBTQ people in it, from memory I recall it's Jens Spahn. Most Germans by far are for it, and some have no opinion and don't care. I've rarely ever come across someone that is hostile towards LGBTQ in Germany, and I come from north east Germany as well. It mostly boils down to the CDU/CSU together, I know some other LGBTQ people that vote for CDU even, but the issue of lack of gay marriage in Germany isn't so much due to it being an issue of society or the people that vote for the CDU. It's kind of a weird and bizarre thing to explain.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for this post.
 
guggnichso

guggnichso

Banned
whyamihere said:
Well, it's only happening now because almost all of the natural coalition partners will demand it for a deal and it's a way to neutralize that before the election.

Not a bad idea IMO. But yeah, it's taken so long because of the CDU/CSU itself.
Click to expand...

In the post-Kohl era mostly because of the CSU, but even those guys get queerer by the, well, decade. Lifting the "Fraktionszwang" was a genius move by Merkel. Even if the bigots of the CSU all vote against it, she will be able to point to the much more diverse voting pattern of the CDU and say "we embrace societal change".

And by the way, fuck the CSU and their ass-backwards shitheads.
 
F

Faddy

Banned
HylianTom said:
Yep.

In all honesty, I think a large part of our situation is that we got really lucky with one Reagan appointee to SCOTUS. Without Anthony Kennedy, our state-by-state marriage map would be a big mess.
Click to expand...

The Gay Marriage Supreme Court ruling was the most baller thing the court has ever done. Rather than create some state by state compromise they just went all out and put it constitutionally on the same footing as heterosexual marriage. Here is an extract of Chief Justice Roberts dissent

”The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs," he wrote. ”Just who do we think we are?"
Click to expand...

Who were they? Heroes.

Passing acts through parliaments are a trickier prospect.
 
E

El-Suave

Member
Should have been done a long time ago. The moment right now is a bit dangerous because if the vote goes well, that'll be ammuntion for AFD in the next election. It's not one of their big talking points in campaigns and I doubt it moves the needle but you don't want to give them a straw now that they seem to be down in the polls.
 
G

GameAddict411

Member
A lot of people in this thread fell into the trap that legalizing gay marriage means that country has the best LGBT rights. You couldn't be more wrong and it's actually one of the biggest concerns for the LGBT advocate groups. There are many other more important factors that determine the quality of life of LGBTQ people. One of the most important aspect is protection and discrimination laws. These sort of laws are not consistent through out the US. Protection laws in San Francisco are extremely different than in rural Alabama. There are no federal laws that protect people based on sexual orientation and that's a big problem. A problem that will never be addressed with the current state of the US government. It was shocking to hear that Germany has never legalized gay marriage, but after reading up about quality of life there for someone who is gay it's definitely better than the US. You at least don't have Evangelical Christians that are in power actively trying to dehumanize and deny basic rights to my people.
 
C

chadskin

Member
El-Suave said:
Should have been done a long time ago. The moment right now is a bit dangerous because if the vote goes well, that'll be ammuntion for AFD in the next election. It's not one of their big talking points in campaigns and I doubt it moves the needle but you don't want to give them a straw now that they seem to be down in the polls.
Click to expand...

One of the two frontrunners of the AfD in the upcoming election, Alice Weidel, is gay. I don't think this'll be any kind of ammunition.
 
S

SolidusDave

Member
RinsFury said:
I'm shocked this wasn't already a thing in Germany. How is this even up to a vote? It should be considered a human right.
Click to expand...

The main reason was that gay people could legally already live in a "partnership". That model was introduced ages ago and gives couples several rights/benefits and thus less pressure in politics for the "real deal".

The main issue in the debate has always been that people were not comfortable with giving gay couples the right to adopt children (which you can't in a "partnership"). Couples themselves being gay was much less of an issue.

Cue also a delay of having the conservatives in power for too long uninterrupted.
 
S

SecretMoblin

Member
GameAddict411 said:
A lot of people in this thread fell into the trap that legalizing gay marriage means that country has the best LGBT rights. You couldn't be more wrong and it's actually one of the biggest concerns for the LGBT advocate groups. There are many other more important factors that determine the quality of life of LGBTQ people. One of the most important aspect is protection and discrimination laws. These sort of laws are not consistent through out the US. Protection laws in San Francisco are extremely different than in rural Alabama. There are no federal laws that protect people based on sexual orientation and that's a big problem. A problem that will never be addressed with the current state of the US government. It was shocking to hear that Germany has never legalized gay marriage, but after reading up about quality of life there for someone who is gay it's definitely better than the US. You at least don't have Evangelical Christians that are in power actively trying to dehumanize and deny basic rights to my people.
Click to expand...

If you think the right to marry isn't a "basic right", I guess. Who needs the right to marry anyway, when gays in Berlin have their own arts scene?

There is certainly a spectrum of rights protecting LGBT+ people and marriage is certainly not the "end point", but attempts to excuse Germany's inability to recognize a very basic right, one that its neighbors have recognized in rapid succession over the past decade, comes across like some weird attempt at bashing the U.S. despite it being (gasp!) ahead of one of its European friends in a single regard.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Zatoth said:
Neue, alte ÖVP.
Click to expand...
At least that should mean they are gonna tank.
SecretMoblin said:
If you think the right to marry isn't a "basic right", I guess. Who needs the right to marry anyway, when gays in Berlin have their own arts scene?

There is certainly a spectrum of rights protecting LGBT+ people and marriage is certainly not the "end point", but attempts to excuse Germany's inability to recognize a very basic right, one that its neighbors have recognized in rapid succession over the past decade, comes across like some weird attempt at bashing the U.S. despite it being (gasp!) ahead of one of its European friends in a single regard.
Click to expand...
Just a couple posts above you you can see that that is not the case at all. Registered Partenrships have been popular implementations in many of Germany's neighbouring countries.
When it comes to legalizing gay marriage we are pretty far behind because the European Court ruled that on this issue they would defer to national courts when it was brought up to them.
680px-Same-sex_marriage_map_Europe_detailed.svg.png
eWccIN7.png
Click to expand...
 
G

GAMEPROFF

Banned
Also, its newsworthy that Merkel said on Monday morning in a meeting that she wont change her opinion on the topic but seemingly just misspoke on the public interview at the evening, which started the whole thing again.
Thats why the CDU tried to block the vote yet again at the Rechtsausschuss but failed.
Now they are twice fucked, if its really going to be a public vote and the decision of every CDU member will be made public afterwards.
 
F

Fritz

Member
hobblygobbly said:
1. Americans made up that stupid title for themselves, no one thinks about "leader of the free world" besides Americans.
2. German society has been much more accepting than U.S concerning homosexuality for a very long time, really getting traction around the counter-culture era.
3. Gay marriage comes through the legislative process in Europe and other parts of the world, unlike it did in the U.S, and it had to have further protections by executive order IIRC.
4. Germany has much better protection laws concerning discrimination of LGBTQ as of now and for much longer than the U.S, especially for transgender people than most countries even where marriage is legal, such as issues concerning their healthcare.
5. Gay marriage is not a barometer for the life of LGBTQ people in a country. Another country I have stayed in, South Africa, has had full LGBTQ rights since the 90s, but it's not that great for LGBTQ people in general due to bad enforcement and general societal views. Views on LGBTQ in the U.S has only changed in very recent years and still are behind compared to countries that don't even have gay marriage like Germany.

Open queer artistic expression and gay lifestyle itself has been in some Germany cities, famously Berlin, since the 1920s. It never disappeared. It's among the greatest places to be for LGBTQ.

It's no excuse for no gay marriage, but it's really dumb to snub it off if you don't understand Germany. One of the reasons why it hasn't been done for so long is because of Merkel being in power for 12 years now, her own party has LGBTQ people in it, from memory I recall it's Jens Spahn. Most Germans by far are for it, and some have no opinion and don't care. I've rarely ever come across someone that is hostile towards LGBTQ in Germany, and I come from north east Germany as well. It mostly boils down to the CDU/CSU together, I know some other LGBTQ people that vote for CDU even, but the issue of lack of gay marriage in Germany isn't so much due to it being an issue of society or the people that vote for the CDU. It's kind of a weird and bizarre thing to explain.
Click to expand...


If anyone is interested in the long history of gay rights in Germany there is a really good article from the New Yorker Berlin Story - How the Germans invented gay rights—more than a century ago
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
Only sixteen years after your neighbors did. Germany making progress. Fucking Merkel only does it because of her campaign though.
 
S

Souldriver

Member
My thoughts:

- far too late for a country like Germany. Countries like Belgium and Netherlands have had Gay marriage for 15 years now.

- probably a good strategic move from Merkel. With this she's giving the opposition even less issues to differentiate themselves from her and CDU.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Good!

Every poll shows that a vast majority (80+%) would like to see this implemented and that also goes for the base of basically every party except the right-wing ones (CSU, AfD), but even there it's pretty close.

Kudos to the Grünen (for always always always pushing for it), FDP (for jumping on the bandwagon more recently) and SPD (for forcing Merkel's hand here, now). It took some clever political maneuvering to do it, but here we are.

hobblygobbly said:
1. Americans made up that stupid title for themselves, no one thinks about "leader of the free world" besides Americans.
2. German society has been much more accepting than U.S concerning homosexuality for a very long time, really getting traction around the counter-culture era.
3. Gay marriage comes through the legislative process in Europe and other parts of the world, unlike it did in the U.S, and it had to have further protections by executive order IIRC.
4. Germany has much better protection laws concerning discrimination of LGBTQ as of now and for much longer than the U.S, especially for transgender people than most countries even where marriage is legal, such as issues concerning their healthcare.
5. Gay marriage is not a barometer for the life of LGBTQ people in a country. Another country I have stayed in, South Africa, has had full LGBTQ rights since the 90s, but it's not that great for LGBTQ people in general due to bad enforcement and general societal views. Views on LGBTQ in the U.S has only changed in very recent years and still are behind compared to countries that don't even have gay marriage like Germany.

Open queer artistic expression and gay lifestyle itself has been in some Germany cities, famously Berlin, since the 1920s. It never disappeared. It's among the greatest places to be for LGBTQ.

It's no excuse for no gay marriage, but it's really dumb to snub it off if you don't understand Germany. One of the reasons why it hasn't been done for so long is because of Merkel being in power for 12 years now, her own party has LGBTQ people in it, from memory I recall it's Jens Spahn. Most Germans by far are for it, and some have no opinion and don't care. I've rarely ever come across someone that is hostile towards LGBTQ in Germany, and I come from north east Germany as well. It mostly boils down to the CDU/CSU together, I know some other LGBTQ people that vote for CDU even, but the issue of lack of gay marriage in Germany isn't so much due to it being an issue of society or the people that vote for the CDU. It's kind of a weird and bizarre thing to explain.
Click to expand...
Great post providing useful background knowledge. :)
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
GAMEPROFF said:
Also, its newsworthy that Merkel said on Monday morning in a meeting that she wont change her opinion on the topic but seemingly just misspoke on the public interview at the evening, which started the whole thing again.
Thats why the CDU tried to block the vote yet again at the Rechtsausschuss but failed.
Now they are twice fucked, if its really going to be a public vote and the decision of every CDU member will be made public afterwards.
Click to expand...

I don't really buy that she "misspoke". Seems to calculated.

Still funny how the whole party is squirming right now.
 
B

beril

Member
Great news, and about bloody time
Merkel seems like a good leader otherwise, at least form an outside, not that informed, perspective; but this has been a huge blemish on her career for a very long time
 
H

Hektor

Member
Kneck said:
I was actually referring to marriage. I thought that was already taking care of.
Like their neighbour.

But I get your point.
Click to expand...

You need to consider that germany already allowed for civil same sex unions for 16 years now, which is the same as same sex marriage in a lot altho not all ways.

Biggest difference between the two being adoption rights and constitutional protection of the partnership iirc.

This isn't some massive step forward the way some people present it to be imho, it's not going from 0% to 100%, it's more like taking the last few steps to full recognition of proper same sex marriage.

But don't get me wrong, it's definitely a good thing nonetheless and the way it's been up to now has been very well deserving of critique.
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
Ac30 said:
Why won't it be anonymous? This vote would probably hurt her party then no? I'd hate to see the AfD run on "well we're the only party who doesn't like gay people, vote for us!"
Click to expand...

The AfD is as good as dead. They can't even run on terrorist attacks anymore. They won't suddenly gain because they oppose gay marriage.
 
F

Frost_Ace

Member
I hope the quorum is reached. If Germany allows it only us in Italy are left. I really hope this will be cause to rediscuss the issue here.
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
Swordy said:
Haha, which kids? I welcome the same-sex-marriage but this won't help with the growing age of the population and the low birthrate.
Click to expand...

Did I claim it does? Of course it doesnt. But some couples wanted to have kids and are able to beginning Friday.
 
G

Gurgelhals

Member
Hope that this gets the ball rolling here in Switzerland again as well. The situation is pretty much the same here, ii.e. civil union: yes / same sex marriage: not yet. So far, things haven't been moving forward, because social and nationalist conservatives are firmly against it and, although a clear majority of voters are in favor of it, the other political parties aren't actively pushing it simply because it's not really seen as one of the big and decisive political issues of our day and age.

Germany going ahead with this could, however, get things moving here again as well. Wouldn't be the first time that this happens. The "Energiewende" was a similar case: Merkel did her little u-turn and Switzerland suddenly was all like: Hey, if the bloody Germans can do this, then maybe we should get our act together too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Rune Factory 5 Will Feature Same-Sex Marriage In The West
2
67
6K
darkangel-212559 replied
  • Locked
Russia bans 'LGBT propaganda' in media for all ages - Assassins Creed, The Last of Us, The Sims, Apex Legends, and more to be possibly banned.
Drama
23
2K
EviLore replied
June 26th 2015 - Two years ago, same-sex marriage was legalized across the USA
39
4K
Monocle replied
German Federal Elections 2017 |OT| Electing the new leader of the free world
46 47 48 49 50
2K
285K
Green Yoshi replied
Germany Builds an Election Firewall to Fight Russian Hackers
15
4K
John Kowalski replied
Top Bottom